The Most Important Holiday Blog Post in the World

This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for the abundance that I have enjoyed this past year, but I am aware that many in this world go without. Thanksgiving also harkens in the Christmas shopping season, and many of you will spend a lot of money on stupid gifts no one really wants or needs. This Thanksgiving, I’m asking my readers to cut me a slice of that pie by supporting this important cause.

The Most Important Holiday Blog Post in the World

 

With the holidays rapidly approaching, a lot of us will be looking for gifts for people we don’t really like that much. If you’ve managed to avoid them all year, a gift is the perfect way to say, “Even though I hate your guts, I really can’t afford to have you talking shit about me.” This Holiday season, I offer you the perfect gift for people who you’d like to think well of you, but whom you don’t really know or like well enough to actually get them anything.

For these special people, a gift card from Helper International tells the recipient that you care more about some random, anonymous kids than you do about them. Helper makes sure that your money only helps cute, happy looking, photogenic kids, and we use the money you donate to give them cute, photogenic animals.

Your chosen recipient will receive a card with a beautiful color photograph so packed with cuteness and “Awwww”, that they will hate themselves, for being pissed that you didn’t really get them anything. Really, isn’t that what giving is all about, the feelings it inspires?

Sure, its awfully expensive for a greeting card, but you and your recipient will both know, that the kid in the picture really got to keep that cute little animal, gave it a name, took care of it, and bonded with it emotionally, before his parents slaughtered it and served it for dinner. That’s the kind of emotional enigma that makes the holidays so special.

Here at Helper International, our mission is simple, we use your donations to give highly prolific, and nutritious, live snails, to exceptionally cute children. Then we photograph the happy kids with their snails, print the photos on gift cards and send the cards to your specified recipient. That’s all there is to it.

Does it help? Sure it does. It helps us unload a bunch of snails, and puts money in our pockets. I can’t think of a more important cause than that, can you? You, and your chosen recipient get to share that “awwww” moment during the holidays, and some kid gets a snail. It’s a win win win deal for everybody.

So, please, give them the most important gift you can give. Give the gift of Escargot this holiday season. Help Helper International make the snail shepherding dreams of adorable children everywhere a reality. Only you can make make this miracle happen. No child should ever be denied the this exquisite delicacy and every child should have the opportunity to get to know the delightful little creatures that produce it in abundance.

Send your generous donations to Helper International, P.O. Box 2301, Redway, CA 95560 and make checks payable to John Hardin.  You’ll be glad you did, and so will I.  Thank you, for you support!

The Thing That Wouldn’t Die

The Thing That Wouldn’t Die

We bought this pumpkin, a few weeks before Halloween last year, partially as a festive holiday decoration, but partially because a cat psychic told us that our black cat Nigel, really likes them. Nigel did, once, many years ago, when he was a kitten, enjoy sharpening his claws, and sitting, on a large orange pumpkin, and looked adorable doing so. However, he has completely ignored subsequent pumpkins, including this one. Although this is not the first pumpkin Nigel has ignored since we talked to the cat psychic, certainly by now, Nigel has ignored this pumpkin longer than any pumpkin in his entire life.

 

I’ve done my best to ignore it as well, but the pumpkin has begun to get on my nerves. This pumpkin takes up a lot of precious real estate on our coffee table. Being round, you can’t set anything on top of it, and being bright orange, you can’t help but notice it. I’ve learned to work around it, keeping my coffee and magazines on the end table instead, although that’s getting a bit crowded with my bong and ash-tray there as well. When I spill bong-water on my American Craft magazine, I try not to blame the pumpkin.

 

For ten months now, this traffic cone of the vegetable kingdom has dominated my field of view. The pumpkin still seemed like a perfectly natural Thanksgiving decoration, and did not seem at all out of place, except that it got in the way of Thanksgiving dinner. We live in a very small place. Our coffee table also serves as our dinner table, so the pumpkin served as an over-sized centerpiece at our Thanksgiving feast.

 

By Christmas, the pumpkin seemed a little strange, but rather than buy a Christmas Tree, we just slapped a Santa’s hat on it. The cone-shaped red hat with fuzzy white, trim looked a little Christmasy, but it also kind of looked like we had Santa’s head on our coffee table.

 

For New Year’s Eve, I thought about hollowing out the pumpkin to use as an ice bucket for champagne, but we had eggnog with homemade blackberry brandy instead, which required no ice bucket. So, the pumpkin sat there through the winter. All winter the pumpkin sat between me and the wood-stove preventing me from seeing the fire within, unless I craned my neck, but we weren’t going to throw away a perfectly good pumpkin.

 

When Springtime came, we had no place to put a vase of wildflowers, because the pumpkin took up too much space.

We let it substitute for an Easter egg, although we’ve never celebrated Jesus based holidays in our household. This pumpkin constitutes the first time we ever had an Easter, or Christmas decoration in our home, but it only happened because we had this pumpkin left over from Halloween. Call us reluctant Christians, at least reluctant to throw away our Halloween pumpkin.

Now, its the middle of August, its 103 degrees. I’m melting, but that pumpkin is still as hard as a rock. We dusted it off again today. No soft spots. The great orange orb sits there on my coffee table, mocking me in the summer heat. “What are you still doing here?” I ask it. The heat is getting to me, I’m starting to lose it.

 

I’m afraid that if it somehow makes it to this Halloween, this pumpkin will somehow be rejuvenated, and last another whole year. I couldn’t take that. I’d have to move out. It’ll be me or the pumpkin if it comes to that. I can’t take it any more. I hope I never see another pumpkin for the rest of my life.

Giving Thanks in 2011

Giving Thanks in 2011

Well its Thanksgiving again. Time to reflect on all the things we have to be thankful for. Sure the economy is in the tank, our government has proven itself completely dysfunctional, and we’ve pretty much blown our chances of mitigating a global climate catastrophe. Despite our complete and utter failure, as a culture, to meet the challenges of our time, and despite the pathetic, shallow, gadget obsessed ninnies we’ve become as individuals, we still have plenty to be thankful for this year. For instance:

 

I’m thankful that on two separate occasions this year, the world failed to end as predicted.

 

I’m thankful that the comet that is allegedly the home planet of Dick Cheney’s “lizard people” relatives, disintegrated into dust before it reached earth.

 

I’m thankful the U.S. has not been invaded by a super-race of seven foot tall Chinese people, as a very troubled neighbor of mine once warned.

 

I’m thankful that despite a nationwide drug shortage in hospitals, you can still find plenty of black tar heroin on the streets of Humboldt Co.

 

I’m thankful that I can get my “junk” touched for free at any airport.

 

I’m thankful for people who are fatter, older, balder, and uglier than me.

 

I’m thankful that piranhas cannot fly and that they prefer a more tropical climate.

 

I’m thankful for German Measles, Mexican Flu and other ethnic diseases, and think that remedies for them should be flavored accordingly. If we do this, the treatment for an upcoming Asian Avian Flu epidemic will taste like Szechuan Chicken.

 

I’m thankful that good pot is finally becoming affordable again.

 

I’m thankful that baby boomers won’t live forever.

 

I’m thankful that most of the tourists, clippers and transients have cleared out of town.

 

I’m thankful that most of the dope yuppies will soon leave for Hawaii.

I’m thankful I wasn’t shot dead by Aaron Basler

 

I’m thankful I wasn’t shot dead by Eureka Police.

 

I’m thankful I wasn’t shot dead by Mexican drug cartels operating in the National Forest.

 

I’m thankful I didn’t shoot myself with the gun I bought to protect my home and family from people like Aaron Basler, the Eureka Police and Mexican drug cartels.

 

I’m thankful for the inspiring SoHum community, who often inspire me to write, and never fail to inspire me to ask “What is wrong with these people?”

 

I’m thankful for the restraining order that keeps my nutcase neighbor away from my home.

 

I’m thankful that I have not had to appear in court in the past year.

 

I’m thankful that house-cats have not been aggressively bred for fighting, and that we are not also overrun with the feline equivalent of pit-bulls.

 

I’m thankful that Michael Jackson, unlike Elvis, has had the good sense to stay dead. The “King of Pop” did not fake us out, with a string of postmortem “sightings”, the way Elvis did, and I’m thankful.

 

I’m thankful that I haven’t seen Jersey Shore, Operation Runway, or American Idol, even once.

 

I’m thankful that I haven’t ever wasted a day playing video games.

 

I’m thankful that I’ve never seen Glen Beck, Bill O’Reilly, or Sean Hannity except as parodied in political cartoons.

 

I’m thankful that I neither own, nor want, an ipad, ipod, or iphone.

 

I’m thankful that gauged lip rings have not gained the same popularity as gauged earrings.

 

I’m thankful that I can’t think of a single symbol, phrase or image that I want indelibly inscribed on my flesh.

 

I’m thankful that bagpipes are not more popular with teenagers.

 

I’m thankful that Penicillin also works for women, even though Vagisil does nothing for men.

 

I’m thankful that Bob Dylan didn’t make a second Christmas album.

 

I’m thankful for caffeinated alcoholic beverages, and for irritable, high-strung drunks. I’m not sure why.

 

I’m thankful that I can still find a good $5 hippie burrito, except that I now pay $7.50 for it.

 

I’m thankful to Greece, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria and Bahrain for showing us what revolution looks like.

 

I’m thankful for the Occupy Wall St. movement for starting one here.

 

I’m thankful that Giant Pacific Salamanders don’t grow to be thirty feet long.

 

I’m thankful for The Independent, The Redwood Times, The Trader, Greenfuse, and the North Coast Journal for providing free, reliable and conveniently located kindling and packing materials.

 

I’m thankful to drone pilots for providing me with a great name for my next album of didgeridoo music.

I’m thankful that some people can still read, and especially for those of you who read this blog.

 

Happy Thanksgiving!