Saturday, December 29, 2007

Why I Hate The Holidays

George C Scott is one of my favorite actors. He is highly accredited, having won Oscars and Emmys and the like. He is the epitome of intensity on screen. He is a rock, he is an island. He built this city, he built this city on rock and roll. I didn’t really notice him until I saw Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. In this very dark comedy, he plays a military advisor to the President during a cold war nuclear fallout / doomsday scenario. At one point, he pretends he is a B-52 bomber and “whooshes” around the Presidents situation room, bombing the Russian countryside with reckless abandon. Although pretending to be a B-52 bomber is fun, this is not why I like George C Scott. It is not his gruff sandpaper voice, or his wheezy laugh, although I do always try to imitate that laugh whenever I have a sore throat, which might be the only good aspect to being sick, you sound like George C Scott when you laugh. It’s not the awards that he has won either. The reason I really like George C Scott is because of his monster mutton chop side burns as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Those things are B. A. D., bad I tell ya’. And not “Michael Jackson Bad,” or “Gleaming the Cube Bad,” or any kinda bad where you don’t know right away how bad something is until you upset some delicate internal balance and release some pent up monster that takes the law into their own hands before realizing the follies of their ways and ends up crying in a corner. That’s not the kind of badness that these sideburns exude. I’m talking about blatantly, out-right, in-yo-face, obviously-gonna-mess-you-up-at-any-given-second-for-no-particular-reason bad. Samuel L. Jackson bad. Sgt. Bosco “BA” Baracus bad. Shaft in Africa bad. Dolph Lundgren bad. George C. Scott’s mutton chops are the definition of bad. If those bad ass mutton chops were a person, and you accidentally bumped into the mutton chops’ parked car, and he saw you do it from inside whatever store a personified mutton-chop being would shop at, you’d get your butt kicked. Those things are bad.


Why do I care so much about George C Scott’s side burns? Because I have no choice. They demand attention. It’s the holidays and I will see those bad mofo’s over and over for the next few weeks as every TV station plays “A Christmas Carol” and “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” and “Jingle All The Way”. I like George C Scott, but I didn’t want to see him and his bad mutton chops out of the corner of my eye while I was sipping gloog at the local pub after a long day of work. You have to be prepared to see mutton chops that bad, and I wasn’t prepared. As a result, the friend I had gone out for a drink with thought that I was being a jerk and went home. Thanks a lot, George. You and your bad ass mutton chops pissed off my friend, not me. That’s why I hate the holidays.

1 comment:

  1. i, as well, love george's mutton chops. and it is tough to see something you love over another's shoulder whilst drinking and chatting at a bar. my condolences.

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