Multiple Personality

Perhaps AIG could learn a thing or two from the Peer Bearing Company, owned until recently by the Spungen family. When their business was acquired by a Swedish company in September, the Spungens decided to give away $6.6 million in bonuses to the 230 employees.

I guess Rudy Giuliani would call that Socialism (I’m singling him out among the jerky hordes — or hoarding jerks — because I’m still mad at him about the “community organizer” thing). I guess I would call it people realizing we’re all in this together.

Thank you, Spungens. I didn’t get a penny from your bonuses, but I feel richer.

You may not know this, but I lived in Barcelona for a while. There are those that would tell you that people are the same the world over. No. They’re different in Barcelona. (And by “different,” I mean “fuckin’ goofball weirdo.”)

Let us take, for example, a calendar produced by (and featuring) the med students of Pere Virgili hospital. Here’s what October looks like:

Because this isn’t baffling enough on its own, the photo features a captioned quote:

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”  (Mother Theresa)

Actually, sometimes I miss Barcelona and its fuckin’ goofball weirdos….

I know this will be anathema to the hearts and minds of retailers, but I think we should all go cold turkey on Christmas shopping this year.

I understand the economy is in the crapper, and people are feeling the strain. But trampling the Wal-Mart employee to death on Black Friday moves this to a whole different dimension. And when shoppers were notified that the store would be closing because someone died, they indignantly said they had been lined up since the previous morning, and then continued shopping.

Stop for a minute. Take a breath. People were lining up since Thanksgiving morning, missing the holiday altogether, to get a good price on a flat screen. People disregarded the loss of a human life — that they were responsible for taking — because they had to buy something to show their love to someone.

I have found the merchandising of Christmas appalling for many years. And it’s not getting any better. We are the only ones who can stem the tide of this lunacy. This year, why don’t you find a non-retail way to show your peeps you love them? Or to celebrate the spirit of Christ, or whatever the holiday means to you. Because some poor Wal-Mart employee lost his life because we’re all believing that we’re not really loved unless we get loot.

I’m at home getting over pneumonia, and this big gay fool is in Alaska doing this. Go figure.

NBC is premiering a new, month-long dance competition, produced by the So You Think You Can Dance folks. It’s called Superstars of Dance, and I don’t think Molly Shannon is involved at all.

I have not idea if it’ll be great, or a panoply of international cheese, but meet me back here after it premieres the first Sunday in 2009, and we’ll discuss. (It moves to Mondays after the premiere, so you can TiVo Desperate Housewives for one night.)

As is my annual (and apparently unbreakable) custom, I watched the brazen commercialism and bad camera work that is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. To my appreciative surprise, there is a “Keith Haring Heart Balloon” this year. I’m surprised because Haring died of AIDS, and was an outspoken gay activist; just looking at his distinctive style is practically a rorschach for words like “gay” and “equality.” I’d say it’s nice that an Institution like the Macy’s Parade isn’t afraid to include a message like that, however subliminal, to impact the kiddies.

At the other end of the spectrum of things that should be impacting the kiddies, there was a performance by a girl pop trio called the Clique Girlz. And they looked every bit as Heathers-attitudey as any high school clique that ever made all the poorer/different/less cute kids feel inferior to them. I thought cliquishness wasn’t an aspiration these days. Maybe High School Musical 4 is where they renege on that “everybody’s special” message. “Clique Girlz”….grumble…

But the good outweighted the annoying, as the Macy’s Parade actually did something…hip. Some kiddie-show float was in the middle of their musical number, and it was suddenly interrupted by — Rick Astley, singing “Never Gonna Give You Up.” They actually did some Rick-rolling! I love it.

Keep your giblets safe and warm.

Viki the Cryptkeeper

The show will be off for the next few days, so I guess they decided to pull out all the stops. Some of the stories today were told with such fine craft that I wanted to pull them out of the alternating structure and watch each story as a whole…especially the Blair/John and Viki ones.

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LIVE BLOG!

Like recovering from a yeast infection, the relief awaiting us on the other side of this finale is palpable. I’m palping just thinking about it. And what better way to celebrate than LIVE…at least on the West Coast. Everybody else already knows who won…except those Mountain people…and even they will know an hour before we do. But it’s all good.

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