Friday Friday...Can't Trust That Day

Well, I spent the morning singing Christmas carols to the parrots. Ripley, our gray parrot, really loves Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. He puffs up and chirps along, making little baby noises. His all-time favorite song is the Road Runner cartoon theme, to which he knows the words. Ripley also likes opera, thanks to my Sweetie — he'll occasionally break into some nameless operetic theme in a flawless tenor, into which he inserts his name. Sort of "La la la Ripley..."

The macaws, on the other hand, mostly like songs with animal noises in them, which pretty much rules out most Christmas carols. They will sing along, however, which in macaw-speak consists of two "LAs" shouted out at top volume. Cleo, our blue and gold macaw, also like to make sheep noises — "BAAAAAAs" — which she considers appropriate in all situations. Thankfully, Alf the Wonder Beagle sits quietly.

I did leave out a gift idea the other day...from J. Crew, the Tie of the Month Club. That's right, for a paltry $475, which includes shipping by the way, you get a new tie every month! I think if that's what I had to look forward to, I'd use the March tie to hang myself. Either that or wait until July, tie all the ties together and use them to escape.

I''m probably being influenced by the Firefly boxed set, which my Sweetie and I have been watching each evening. The series' relentless liberterian philosophy, along with its casual acceptance of occasional violence as the price of that lifestyle, is a perfect year-end antidote to things like the Tie of the Month Club. I notice that a few lines from the Firely theme has become, in effect, shorthand for libertarian on some web-lists:

Burn the land
Boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me

I'm going to do my best to contact producer Joss Whedon and invite him on SHOOTING GALLERY, or at least on one of the celebrity shoots that I'm hosting in 2006.

We sent in our entries for the Telly Awards — essentially the cable Emmys — yesterday. From SG, we sent in the Jeff Cooper and the International Tactical Rifle Championships episodes; from COWBOYS, the Wild Mustang and the Czech Cowboys episodes.

We're looking at a spectacular 2006 for SG and COWBOYS. There's the SG Invitational we're filming in February, where you'll get to see the best shooters in the world as you've never seen them before. I also just got off the phone with the legendary Mike Dillon about an episode or two featuring Mike's other business — miniguns. We'll also be filming advanced concealed carry force-on-force simulations at Valhalla (with regular Walt Rauch and novelist/Detonics resurrector/concelaed carry expert Jerry Ahern), not to mention Bill Murphy's sterling combat shotgun class at GUNSITE. COWBOYS is also getting kicked up a notch, with probably another trip out of the country on the schedule.

New season for both shows begins 26 December.

Finally, I actually learned something on morning television yesterday that STONE COLD amazed me — Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, one of the GODS of rock-and-roll guitar, is presently working as a self-taught defense analyst for varous and sundry Congressmen, specializing in missile defense. This from the Wikipedia bio, which heaven knows is probably wrong:

The guitarist-turned-defense-consultant does regular work for the Department of Defense and the nation's intelligence community, chairs a congressional advisory board on missile defense, and has lucrative consulting contracts with companies like Science Applications International Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. He says he is in increasing demand for his unconventional views of counterterrorism.

My god, there's hope for us all! And even though he wears occasionally wears a suit, I'll bet Skunk doesn't belong to the Tie--of-the-Month Club! Rock on, brother, and watch for that invitation to be on SG!