A Post There That Wasn't There Before

  I got sick the day after Thanksgiving, and so as I lay there convinced I was dying I rewatched Beauty and the Beast and rediscovered why it's my favorite Disney movie ever and Belle my favorite princess. I haven't seen it fully in years, but it hadn't lost any of the hold it had on me before I got a sore throat and stomach virus at the same time. 
  Oh, and by the way, to add insult to illness, when I woke up at five-thirty Sunday morning and decided that I needed to puke, I went running into the bathroom--literally. The hallway was so dark and I was so sick that half of me went in and half of me slammed into the doorway. But back to Belle. 
  Belle is, and has consistently been, my favorite Disney princess by far throughout my life. She's brunette, she reads, and she teaches a hideous monster to love again. Girl power!
  The story of Beauty and the Beast is, as my friend Melvin so eloquently put it, "a beautiful story," and each time I watch it I find that I love it more and more. This weekend alone I watched it two times and roped my family into watching The Enchanted Christmas with me, and I've decided that I'm watching it again on Friday because, thank God, we're off from school. And my throat's finally feeling better, so I might--just might--be able to sing along with "Be Our Guest" or "Something There That Wasn't There Before" or "Human Again" (special edition, suckers!!!). 
  And I have no idea, truly, who Robby Benson is, except that he's the dude who sounds like a demon throughout most of the movie. And that he's possibly the best voice they could have picked for Beast (yeah, it ticks me off that Belle's prince doesn't have a name). I also liked that everybody did their own singing, because usually in Disney movies the credits have a voice and then a singing voice although, I have to admit, most of the time they do sound incredibly alike. Sometimes scarily so. I didn't know that wasn't Matthew Broderick singing in The Lion King until, like, two months ago. Honestly. 
  And I have made it a goal in life to have an entire room--whenever I get a house--devoted to Beauty and the Beast stuff; I want to be a collector. 
  At least it's not heads, or cats, or Chihuahuas, or those creepy dolls whose glass eyes seem to follow you across the room whenever you have to walk right by them. There's lots of worse things to collect. Leave me alone.

 
 

Give Me Nightmares Before Christmas

  Have you guys ever heard possibly the creepiest Christmas song of all time? No? Well, I hadn't either, not until I heard Louis Armstrong's "Zat You, Santa Claus?" And while the song has one redeeming quality that I shall tell you at the end of this strange, eerie journey, without it it would be one freaking insane song. 
  In case you haven't guessed yet, this is one of my father's favorite Christmas songs and he taped the lyrics of it to my door to bother me. So let's deconstruct this line by line and verse by verse, shall we?

"Zat you, Santa Claus?
Gifts I'm preparin'
For some Christmas sharin'
But I pause because
Hangin' my stockin'
I can hear a knockin'
'Zat you, Santa Claus?"

• Recap: The man in the song is hanging his stocking and he hears someone knocking. All right. Not too creepy yet, right? It gets worse. 

"Sure is dark out
Not the slighest spark out
Pardon my clackin' jaws
Uh, who there?
Who is it?
Uh, stoppin' for a visit
'Zat you, Santa Claus?"

• Recap: The man is now getting nervous. And it's really dark out. Scared yet?

"Are you bringin' a present for me?
Something pleasantly pleasant for me?
That's what I've been waitin' for
Would you mind slippin' it under the door?"

• Recap: The man asks Santa to drop his presents there and leave. Strike one? Santa didn't go down the chimney, and the man didn't say that he doesn't have one. 

"Four winds are howlin'
Or maybe that be growlin'
My legs feel like straws
Oh my, my, me, my
Kindly would you reply
'Zat you, Santa Claus?
Yeah

Oh hangin' my stockin'
I can hear a knockin'
'Zat you, Santa Claus?

Yeah, say now
Hey there, who is it
Stoppin' for a visit?
'Zat you, Santa Claus?"

• Recap: The man hears growling outside. Growling. Last time I checked, reindeer don't growl--and neither does Santa. Crapped yet? Hold on... 

"Whoa there Santa you gave me a scare
Now stop teasin' 'cause I know you're there
We don't believe in no goblins today
But I can't explain why I'm shakin' this way"

• Recap: The man is trying to convince himself it's Santa outside, not a "goblin." And yet he's still shaking...

"Well, I see old Santa in the keyhole
I'll give to the cause
One peek and I'll try there
Uh-oh there's an eye there
'Zat you, Santa Claus?"

• Recap: THE MAN SEES AN EYE IN THE KEYHOLE! SANTA KNOWS IF YOU'RE AWAKE OR ASLEEP--HE DOESN'T NEED TO BE A CREEPER ABOUT IT! PLUS, WHAT IF THE MAN IN THE HOUSE WASN'T STANDING BY THE DOOR? "SANTA" WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO SEE HIM! SO IT'S JUST A GUY LOOKING IN!!! I JUST CRAPPED MY PANTS!

"Please, please
I pity my knees
Say that's you Santa Claus"

• Recap: Now the man's not asking anymore; he's begging the creeper person outside to say he's Santa. Instead of...what? A creeper? 

  All right, so you're probably a little skeeved right now. An eye, growling, knocking...Anybody would be. I forgive you the huge pee stain on the front of your pants, Whizzy. But here's the good news: redeeming quality time!

  The end of the song usually gets cut off on the radio, because the music goes on for several seconds more and that's time the DJ could spend talking about his failing liver or playing commercials. But by cutting that out, they also cut out the last line of the song, which thankfully goes: "That's him, all right!" 

  So, thank God, it's not a murderer out to whack Satchmo; it's Santa. A creeper Santa, but still Santa. So that's good news. But I couldn't have found this out a year ago, the first and only time I heard the song from what I thought was beginning to end, and spared myself the endless terror? 

  But that's why I did this today, Second Chancers. So I could spare you the endless terror and pee-stained pants that have tormented me for a year now. I hope I've done my job. 

  And you might want to stop shaking, Frosty. It's over now. Satchmo's safe. 

  He's also dead, but not because of Santa. I'm pretty sure.  

 

Turkey on White, Turkey on Rye, the Word NiteOwl Only Has One "I"...

  Tomorrow's Thanksgiving, fools, so eat up! I know I will. I'm making the mac-and-cheese for our family dinner; I did it last year and, surprisingly, nobody died of food poisoning. Oh, and they liked it. I would have been just satisfied with nobody keeling over, but that they liked it made it even better. I'm more of a baker than a chef, if you really care (which I have the feeling you don't. But I'm the one writing this thing, so it doesn't really matter). 
  I just wanted to say that I hope you all have a safe, fun, happy Thanksgiving and that I feel so sorry for you people stuck with that crappy traveling situation. I'm not, because my grandmother lives barely twenty minutes from our "apartment community." But don't think I'm rubbing it in, because your NiteOwl would never do that (all right, maybe a little). 
  Just remember the story of Thanksgiving: Once upon a time, people came from England to America and met some Indians, and John Smith met one who taught him to sing with all the voices of the mountains and paint with all the colors of the wind--
  Wait, that's not it? Oh. That's the plot of Pocahontas, sorry. Maybe Linus can explain it better than I can.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjqTxqQJM2w
  Eat turkey and pie, watch football, gain fifty pounds in five minutes, and be thankful for whatever you feel like being thankful for! Me? I'm thankful for family, the internet, YouTube, the circle of life, chocolate, World's Dumbest, and pie! Here's to not poisoning your family, to stuffing our faces and sleeping for ten hours straight! Hizzah! Hallelujah! Thank you, Indians! Thanks to everybody who made this day possible! Thank you and good night! 

The Blue Corn Moon

  No, I have no idea when that is. I'm just quoting "Colors of the Wind" from Disney's Pocahontas (if you don't like this movie, stop reading this post now.). I had the pleasure of watching it over the weekend, and I rediscovered yet another reason Disney made my childhood wonderful. It's still a great movie. 
  Now, Dad doesn't like it, meaning that instead of it being able to be part of our Watch All the Classic Disney Movies campaign, I had to watch it alone in my room on my mini DVD player. But that's okay, now that I think about it. Dad would have totally ruined the experience for me by teasing me about how it's really me and John Enos or something stupid like that, like he ruined "A Whole New World" from Aladdin for me. But back to Pocahontas....
  I liked it, even though some of the beginning skipped because it was a library DVD and I ended up missing when Pocahontas and her dad were talking and he gave her her mother's necklace. But, thankfully, I didn't miss "Just Around the Riverbend" or "Colors of the Wind" or, basically, anything else after that. I completely forgot how funny Flit and Meeko (and, later, Percy) was. I don't know how that's possible, but somehow, I did...and yes, I did cry at the end, when John Smith was being carried away on his ship and Pocahontas ran to the cliff and they did the whole goodbye-wavy-arm thing. If you think about it, she was the only Disney princess who didn't get her happily ever after. Yeah, I know she married John Rolfe, but we all know she loved John Smith the best.
  And yes, Grandmother Willow is a real historical character. The real Pocahontas often spoke to a tree that talked back to her. Didn't you know that?  

We Got Spirit? Yes, We Do! We Got Spirit? How 'Bout You? No.

  Well, on the Friday before Halloween we had our first pep rally of the school year. And can I just say it was even worse than the last one of last year? And you know how I feel about that one.
  Cheering your own class? No. Exciting games that kept us interested? Except for maybe tug-of-war, nope. Interesting musical performances? Please. The color guards' flags weren't even in our school colors. And they're the flags we use in competitions and stuff. Yeah. Way to go, color guard. You rock. Booing the freshmen? Please.
   It was, honestly, torture. I would have rather been in class, because my last two periods of the day that that horrible pile-of-crap pep rally stole from me and I shall never be able to reclaim again are basically easy classes that I have fun in. Thanks, "pep" rally. You have sucked my soul dry. I didn't even know there was anything left to suck. 
  I was so bored that I just started booing everybody. I nearly started writing, except there wasn't really any elbow room. I was already disassociated from my class because I wasn't wearing my class color, green, like everybody else surprisingly was. I don't think that anybody else wasn't wearing green. It was freaky. And I made sure to wear blue, a color that no other class had, because I didn't want to support anybody. I announced to my leprechaun friends at the rally that I was going to make a T-shirt that read "You All Suck" and wear it to the next one. They loved the idea and I'm going to do it. So what if the administration will find it offensive? Maybe they'll through me out and I won't have to sit through another hunk-of- crap rally. Now that's an idea worth cheering....