Holiday Magic
Two kinds! First, here is this Christmas message I recorded for dear old Ken Plume at Quick Stop Entertainment. He always tries to get me to do something for his annual Holiday Havoc extravaganza, and I usually weasel out of it in some way. This year was no exception. And yes, those are the same potato sticks I was eating at the end of the Monkey Shines credit sequence. Back in the 80s, on television. Thank you Ken Plume for all the entertainment you make available to us at a single, quick stop.
And second, it’s a JoCo advent calendar filled with Ultrastar Deluxe karaoke files! What? Right. I am barely hanging on myself here, but I gather that one of the elves in the forums has used the open source karaoke game Ultrastar Deluxe and the CC licensing of my karaoke versions to create 25 playable JoCo “levels.” Do you kids still call them levels? A new song will be released every day between now and Festivus. Sing along and win (points I think?)! And no, I cannot help you with installing anything or learning how to sing. Thanks Spektugalo and SKillMaster and Silverbeam and Blindguard for making it happen. (By the way, those are the names of my reindeer.)
And Then There’s JoCo
Yeah, I don’t know what to say about this. Everyone knows what happened to my acting career in the 80’s – let’s just say that I should have been working at Sea World because I was very good at making sharks jump. Or I guess, making people, or rather television shows, jump over sharks. Or Fonzie. Whatever! You know what I mean. This series never got of the ground, and to be perfectly honest I don’t even remember shooting the pilot – as you know, in those days I would drink about 10 Cokes before I even got out of bed, that was what it took for me to feel normal. So it’s safe to say that I was still feeling pretty loopy by the time they turned the cameras on. This particular failure was one shark (jumped over) too many, and it pretty much marked the end of my TV career (punching Stephen J. Canell in the eye at Tony Danza’s progressive dinner party did not help, ha ha).
Anyway, they found some footage:
Birthdays
When you get to be 38 like me, the birthday thing starts to feel a little bit like old news – what, this again? So it’s nice to discover that people I don’t even know are thinking of me on my SPECIAL DAY (which was yesterday December 1). I received several gifts in the mail yesterday, many birthday wishes via email, and most remarkably, a box filled with the results of a stuffed monkey’s incredible journey across the globe, through the very bowels of JoCo fandom (i.e., NASA, Ren Faires, etc.). Colleen kicked the whole thing off in the forums, and over the course of the last year said monkey was passed from fan to fan, collecting souvenirs, journal entries and photos along the way. Here is most of what came in the box (two boxes actually).
I’m still trying to process everything, but it certainly seems like JoCo fans know how to show a monkey a good time (does anyone know how to disinfect a stuffed monkey?).
You people are crazy, and I love you for it. Thank you.
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