Why Rudolph Seldom Does Interviews – Blogfestivus Series

Damn paparazzi! Rudy should have worn a hat with those dark glasses.

To: 1 Point Perspective

Memo: Pre-Interview Guidelines

Per previous discussions, please adhere to the guidelines for the interview.  To summarize the critical points:

• Mr. Rudolph will not entertain requests to light his nose during interviews – not even a little blink.  Please do not ask.

• No mention may be made of Burl Ives, or his allegations of Beacon-Beak Enterprise’s alleged financial improprieties.

• Any questions regarding the stag film “Red-Light District of the North Pole” of 1976 will result in immediate termination of the interview and legal action to suppress.

• Discussions of the Island of Misfit Toys subdivision and time-share profits by the Scarlet Honker Limited Partnership are stictly forbidden.

• Any discussion of Mr. Rudolph’s possible use of a hyperbaric oxygen chamber will result in immediate cessation of the interview.

• Any discussion of the ongoing legal action regarding the author Suzanne Collins is forbidden.  Mr. Rudolph and his legal advisors believe that “The Hunger Games” is clearly based on “The Reindeer Games” and as such is in clear violation of intellectual property laws.

• Any unauthorized use of the Flying-Red-Nose logo is strictly forbidden.

• Mr. Rudolph does not give autographs at any time.  His hooves are not pen-friendly.

• Any reference to the pending class-action lawsuit against the “Yukon Cornelius Camp for Wayward Boys” is strictly forbidden.

• Mr. Rudolph denies any knowledge of Lindsay and Dina Lohan’s alleged Nordic tattoos.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here’s a list of the links to my fellow Blogfestivus writers.  I’m sure they’re as tired of these reindeer as I am.

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

Blitzen’s White Christmas – Blogfestivus Series

Zis iz zee original photo, before it vas edited by zertain parties.

Zee Christmas holiday hess no longer zee pureness it vonce had, yes?

Ven I vas young buck, vee flew through zee night to bring presents to zee kinder.  Vee flew right past zee homes of zee unpure und vee left entire continents in zee dark – zoe to speak, yes?

Und now?  Now vee must fly much furzer und bring zee presents to zoe many more kinder, even zee schwartzas, yes?  Vee must fly zoe far und land on roofs vissout zee chimneys, und vee must carry toys which mine elves make for zee unpure kinder.

During zee great var, I tried to get Zanta to zee the light.  If vee could heff helped zee cause a little bit, zee vorld might be verrry different today, yes?  But that Zaint Nick, he vould not budge.  He vished to remain neutral.  He vas like Svitzerland mit a big vite beard.  Zo jolly, but zo spineless, yes?

Und now?  Now zee ozzer reindeer, zay do not vish for ozzers to zpeak to me.  Zay vill not zay it out loud, but zay too vish for zee purer Christmas.  Zee reindeer und even zee elves know zat zee holidays….

Vait!  I am not done vit mine interview!  Take zat tape recorder back outta zee case!  I heff more to zay about…

Ahh!…I zee clearly now.  You are viss the media, und vee know who controls you…Vee are finished talking, yes?

Ach!

Below is a list of all the other Blogfestivus participants – though after the gem I posted above, they may be busy distancing themselves from anything to do with Blitzen or reindeer  (Personally, I think this sociopathic Nazi version of Blitzen presented a golden opportunity for humor).

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

Donner : A Barrel of Laughs – Blogfestivus Series

Oh Jeez! Blitzen’s gonna sit on the whoopee cushion! This is gonna be rich!

Is it so wrong to wanna have a little fun?  People need to lighten up!

Fat boy told me I’m on thin ice.  He threw my permanent record on his desk.  The file was as thick as a brick!  I’d forgotten about how meticiulous they were about write-ups.

“Take a look” he said.  “This folder goes back to 1973, I can get out earlier ones, but you get the idea.”

It looked like every one of my practical jokes for the last 40-odd years was accounted for.

Once, on the Island of Misfit Toys, I put Charlie-in-the-Box under an ice shelf.  That weasel popped out and clunked his head till he saw stars!  I might have gotten away with that, but I was trying so hard not to laugh that I left some yellow in the snow.

Another time, I slipped laxatives into the reindeer chow right before the big night.  Holy crap was that ever funny!  Duluth took the worst of it – no white Christmas that year!  The news media blamed it on jetliners, but we knew better.  I guess my constant giggling and being the only one without the Hershey squirts was damning evidence – that and my insistance on being in the front of the formation.

So now I’m on probation.

I stopped on my way back from Tubby’s office and took the smoke bombs out of the sleigh.  I may have to wait awhile before I’m able to use those.

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Ladies and gentlemen!  I present to you, my fellow Blogfestivus writers.  Watch carefully as they perform death defying feats!  Just kidding, they’re mere mortal blog writers.

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

Cupid Confesses – Blogfestivus Series

I know I’ve got a problem. I’m not proud. I can’t even say why I do these things.

Most reindeer couldn’t say where things went wrong.  I can tell you every detail.

It was 1947.  We were on a steep roof on the outskirts of Nutley, New Jersey.  The big man was carefully making his way over toward the chimney.  We stood there waiting, trying to be quiet.  As he heaved himself onto the chimney, a brightly wrapped present fell out of his sack and skidded across the roof, I lifted my right front hoof and gently stopped it before it got past me.  I looked up at the fellas, hoping for an “Atta boy!” or a “Nice stop, Cupe!” but no one had seen it.

I turned back to the Chubster, but he’d already dropped down the chute.  I looked at the present.  The tag read “To: Salvatore – From: Santa“.  I made my fateful decision.  I picked it up and tucked it out of sight under the strap of bells on my neck.

Otherwise, the night was uneventful.  I had a few moments of guilt, but mostly spent the rest of the night wondering what was inside the wrapping paper.

It was a little metal car.  I didn’t spend much time thinking about the Salvatore kid.  I covered it with hay in the corner of my stall.  The next year it was a doll meant for Gertrude in Dekalb, Illinois.

Some years I don’t manage to take anything, but most years I do.  I’m not proud.  I just can’t help myself.

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Here’s a list of the links to my fellow Blogfestivus writers.  They’re a rag-tag band of knuckleheads, but I love ’em.

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

Comet Speaks Frankly

I simply adore these team portraits. The spirit of collegiality and comradery takes me back to my prep school days.

Comet sits in a leather wing chair next to the hearth of a crackling fire.  A snifter of cognac in his left hoof.  He wears a tufted smoking jacket with reading glasses perched on the end of his snout.  On his crossed legs, sits a signed first edition of “A Christmas Carol”  He turns to us and speaks:

One might presume that a reindeer such as myself, whose primary vocation in this era involves pulling a sleigh, might be something of a luddite.  I can assure you, this  is simply not the case.  Admittedly, my profession  qualifies me as a beast of burden.  Our task, though laborious, involves flying without the assistance of jet engines or even flammable fuels.  It is unrivaled by modern technology.

In any case, flying through the skies in these modern times is not as simple as it once was.  A handful of years ago, our biggest obstacle was the occasional flock of geese.  These days the skies are crowded with everything from jumbo jets to country singers in ultra-lights.

The FAA saw fit to intercede. Our sleigh has been fitted with strobe beacons and Rudoph’s nose has been supplemented with right-of-way lights on his port and starboard sides.  The poor fellow has gone from being the star of the team to looking like a billboard for bad taste!

In any case, I’ve enjoyed this little interview.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to return to my reading.

Here is a list of the links to my fellow Blogfestivus writers.  Some of them are quite talented, but there are a couple who are just riding the coat-tails.  You know who you are!

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

Vixen – Back From The Edge – Blogfestivus Series

Can you find the hidden picture among Santa’s reindeer? Just kidding, there’s no hidden pictures!

Clean and sober goin’ on 80-some years now.  Nothing worse than a reformed boozer though, right?  Running with the boys was a blast, but speed kills.  Who’d know that better than a flying reindeer?

One time in France, I was on a bender with Dancer.  We’d been to the Folies, saw Josephine Baker do the Banana Dance.  I was drinking gin and had show girls fondling my antlers.  We ended up in a smokey club and I started hitting the absinthe.  Thats’s when things got weird.  I was so twisted, I saw a little man in green calling me a “horny arse”.  I closed my eyes to escape the apparition, and when I opened them, he was gone.

Bouncers and bartenders were pushing us outside and yelling at us.  The show girls had disappeared.  I would have thought they were illusions too, except for the silk stocking I found hanging from my antlers in the jail cell.  Dancer was piss drunk, and amused by everything.

As the absinthe high faded and Dancer slept off the champagne, I sat there thinking.  I had 7 other deer, a fat guy and millions of kids counting on me.  We had no GPS or Rudolph back then.  A sleigh full of toys falling out of control because of stoned reindeer would not make a pretty landing.

I walked out of that cell on changed hooves.  It’s been nothing stronger than oats and Arctic raspberries for me ever since.

Below is a list of the links to my fellow Blogfestivus writers.  I hope they appreciate the effort I’m expending here.  I’m delivering them the gift of readers and potential followers, all tied up with a pretty bow.  Hey!  Stop picking at that bow!

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

Can you find the hidden picture among Santa’s reindeer? Just kidding, there’s no hidden pictures!

Who Names Someone Prancer? – Blogfestivus Series

Is anyone else getting tired of this pic yet? Well that’s too damn bad – Blogdramedy insisted we use it and you should all be happy there’s any picture at all – now buck up!

They say that mothers know.  Somehow, before I even managed to stand up on my four hooves for the first time, Mom just knew.

Maybe that’s what Mom was thinking when she named me Prancer.  She sang my little sister lullabies, but when I was little, it was show tunes and watching Judy Garland movies till I dozed off.

It rubbed me the wrong way when I saw all the attention Rudolph got for his nose.  Covering it with a black rubber ball?  We saw how well that worked!  If he’d asked, I would have given him some free advice:

“Hey Sister!  Use some foundation and a little concealer.  Then make fashion choices to draw attention away from awkward features.”

He didn’t ask, of course, and his secret was out of the bag.  Before long he was working that ruby honker for all it was worth.  Foggy nights and that big bear Burl Ives made him a star.  He had it easy.  I’ve had much more of a struggle.

Imagine keeping your own sexuality under wrapping paper.   I have zero opportunity to try anything different with my hair, and don’t even get me started on fashion.  My macho co-workers think I’m the quiet type.  In reality, I’m always trying to think of ways to avoid pronouncing my sibalent esses.  I stay away from the plurals, honey.

Change comes slow to the North Pole.  Looks like I’m in this closet for another year.

Below are the names / links of my fellow Blogfestivus bloggers.  If I find out they’re not sending their readers over here, there’s gonna be hell to pay, let me tell you.

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

Dancer: The E!-True Hollywood Story – Blogfestivus Series

Same picture as yesterday…or IS it?

Rudolph’s the famous one, but only since he showed up.  Before that foggy night, he was nobody.  I was one of the original stars, me and Vixen.  We’d go clubbing, carrying on till the wee hours.  Show-girls go nuts for a pair of antlers.

One time, we’re at a ritzy club in Paris in the roaring 20’s, in the offseason.  Vix and me are feeling no pain.  Sometime after midnight, he switched from gin rickeys to shots of absinthe, I’m drinking champagne like it’s 7-Up.  We’re hanging out with these two wild chicks from the Folies Bergere.

Just two eternally-young reindeer bucks, a couple of frisky can-can dancers and under 3 hours till dawn.

I don’t know when, but a leprechaun from one of “The Lesser Holidays” starts mouthing off to Vixen.  Vix is starting to get a little trippy from the absinthe, and I’m not sure he even knew the wee man was real.  I’m flying, but I know an insult when I hear one.  Stumpy turned to me and called me a name which I won’t repeat here.  I turned to walk away, then gave him a “Nordic tattoo” – two rear hooves to his chin.

All hell broke loose and next thing I remember we’re badly hungover and getting bailed out of the pokey by Santa’s lawyer.  Sure, we caught some flak, but the memories of a good party were more than worth Santa’s reprimands – like he’s got room to talk anyway.

Below is a list of links to all the other Blogfestivus writers.  You’re welcome to visit their blogs and even read their posts – but any comments should be limited to telling them how witty my post is.

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

Dasher; Unbridled – Blogfestivus Series

This isn’t my illustration. It’s the corporate logo for Blogfestivus – used under authority of Blogdramedy. Any unauthorized use of the Blogfestivus corporate art will piss her off – big time.

You know what’s never in yer poems or holiday stories?  They never mention arctic fleas.  An’ you never hear about the time I had a case of ice-mange so bad that I had a patch of fur missing that left my reindeer ass lookin’ like two monks kissing.  The jolly slob hadda put down the sauce and pull a team of elves off the assembly line to weave me a butt-toupe’.  Believe me, those little twerps were none too happy with that assignment – Hey! “ass-ignment” – that’s like a pun, right?

They used some extra Barbi hair they had laying around – the color was totally off.  The gang was havin’ a good chuckle.  That sorry rug made my tush looked like I sat in freakin’ plum pudding.

“Way to take one for the team, Dasher.”  That’s what they said – laughin’ behind my cold, sore backside.  We been on plenty a training runs with 6 flyers plus red-shnoz.  They coulda given me the night off, it wouldna killed ’em.

“Gotta be Rudy plus 8, Dasher, you know…union regs” they said, smilin’ like jack-asses.

So yeah, flyin’ around the world in the dead of winter with your rashy rear-end barely covered by a badly woven hairpiece – that aint exactly Currier and Ives, is it?  You people believe what you wanna – sometimes the truth aint pretty.  Like when you look out in yer driveways and there’s no Lexus with a bow on it again this year.

Below are the links for my Blogfestivus co-conspirators.  Feel free to check them out, but click “Like” on mine first and make comments before you go flitting around to other blogs.

Blogdramedy (Ring Leader, reindeer enthusiast, generally cool chick)

Steve Betz – Rewind Revise – Lenore Diane – Shouts from the Abyss –

Fit it or Deal – Lynn Schneider Books – So I Went Undercover –

Joe Owen’s Blog – MC’s Whispers – LittleWonder2  –

Blog It or Lose It! – Voice in Me – Apprentice, never master –

A Year of Daily Posts – Diary of a Sensitive Soul – Dot Knows! – k8edid

A Briefs and Socks Announcement

It’s me. It’s a Christmas card. I got a million of ’em.

This blog will be commandeered over the coming days by the Reindeer of the Icelandic Antler Club – or RIAC as they are known.  There will be 9 posts over the course of 9 days, each focusing on a different member of the club.  Each post will be short – no more than 243 words – but hard-hitting nonetheless.  This unprecedented hijacking of my blog is part of Blogdramedy’s Blogfestivus Torturama.

While I’m fairly certain that most everyone reading this is already sick to death of the holiday season, please note, the interviews with these seasonal flyers will be no-holds-barred, gritty, perhaps shocking expose’s – not the Bah-bwa Wah-wah powder puff pieces you’re used to seeing on TV.

You may find that your preconceived notions of these characters are shattered.  It’s time the facts came out.  Be warned, these reindeer will be pulling no punches when it comes to pulling a sleigh.  The mittens will be off and the truth will not be sugar-plum-coated.

You’ve been warned.   When the reindeer posts are complete, I’ll try to pick up the pieces and move this blog forward.  With any luck, no one will order a hit on me for messing with tradition.

(For you English majors out there, at no point will the non-word “reindeers” be used)