Well, here we are at that time of year again, meaning Wednesday, December 6, and I am not at all sure what significance that day and date, the month has, carries, or contains. However, it is a day, a date, and as good a day and date as any. And, being December, this is the month when we entertain all kinds of fantasies about Christmas miracles; miracles like finding some cutie/hotie to love, like being able to get up out of the wheelchair and walk again; miracles like losing some of those extra fat pounds, a few hundred of those wrinkles, a few gray hairs; being able to lose a whole lot of those bad memories of days past, days gone bad.

Anyway, Xmas is when you turn your thoughts to . . . well, to cute, naked young girls for guys like me (I've seen a whole lot of ugly young girls naked, and you don't want to see that!) However, and not being naughty like me, you guys and gals turn your thoughts to Santa Claus, flying reindeers, and to some extraordinary little shit who was born in a manger to impoverished and ignorant intransigents. (Good call -- and to think this little shit, who may or may not have been circumcised, went on to become your Messiah. Good call. A really good call.)

But anyway, it is that time of the year. A time of the year when American boys and girls in uniform are dying in Iraq and elsewhere (That'll teach them to scorn the importance of a quality education, as well as the luck of the draw where being born into the right kinds of families {meaning those families socially and economically prominent} are concerned. John Kerry was right: John saw the elephant that everybody else wished to ignore. Good call there, John. Really good call.

Oh, and the Stardust has closed. Ah, history. Ya know, I learned more about people and life in eight months at the Stardust than I learned in 18 years worth of quality private education. Nice. Really nice. Yup. But now the Stardust is closed.

Anyway, it's that time of the year. Dreams and visions of sugarplums (like anybody dreams about a friggin sugarplum. I mean, get real!) Yup. It's that time of year again. Meaning, it's cold outside, which is hard on the homeless, as if anybody really gives a shit. (I mean, I don't, and why should I. Why should any of you? Fuck em. If we wish to help the homeless, we could bring them inside to stay with one of us for the holidays -- or we could force the lazy fucks to get jobs!) But enough about that -- I was starting to rant, starting to say things unpopular. Starting, in other words, to speak the simple truths which none wish to hear because you can't gush over the truth, like you can over thoughts of magic and Harry Potter, or old Shirley Temple moves (Boy would I have loved to see her on a porn site. Damn. She was a fucking hottie! I bet she had a little tush on her that was . . . really, pure Heaven. I bet she shit angels and pissed saints, if you sorta know what I mean. But enough about that.) Yup. And I just know little Shirley Temple's twat was all that. I just know it. Essence of pure innocence, that's how it would have smelled. God, what I wouldn't have given to sniff her twat. Essence of Perfect Childhood. What I wouldn't have given to have worshipped my God and yours at the altar of her sweet little ass. Yup, it being that time of the year and all.

And did you know this? Criss Angel doesn't fart. He doesn't. He really doesn't because I just upped and asked him the other night at his afterparty, and he said, "Nope. I never fart. Never. Nope. I'm not giving anything away! Never!" And I had to laugh at that, it being that time of the year and all, and with all the homelessness and poverty going on out there somewhere, or everywhere, or maybe nowhere, cause it's hard to know the real difference between what we're just imagining, and what we ain't imagining.

Sorry. I just sneezed. It was the nose candy. But I'm all right now. Fact, I'm splendid, which of course I should be, it being that time of the year, whatever the fuck that means. And that fucking Pope Benedict, he sure pissed all them Towelheads off didn't he? Yup. And we all got hot cause he said what he said. Fucking Pooped out Pope, right. Am I right? But it is that time of the year.

And Bush is gonna stay the course in Iraq. Can't nobody talk him out of it, not even all these new Demos, who have just been elected. Yup. It's that time of the year, all right. And it is a good, a great, a splendid time of the year! (Excuse me -- I needed to do another line. So did little Sally. You remember Sally, don't you? Charlie Brown's little friend. Sally is a hottie. Sally is a Cutie. Sally wants to know why Charlie Brown never tried to look up her skirt. I don't know what to tell our Cute Little Sally.) Anyway, I'm back now, and I'm doing fine. You're doing fine. It's all going to be fine. Afterall, it's that time of the year.

60,000,000 people die on this planet in an average year. 1.1 million of them die of AIDS. Yup. So AIDS, it don't kill as many people, as say malnutrition and unsanitary living conditions, which, the world over, kills 83% of all people between birth and their 25th year. But you all knew that, of course. Smart, well-informed shitters that you are. Yup. And like I said, it is that time of the year. Yup.

So, anyhow, I watched a death the other night. Really freaked out, having to say goodbye like that. And I thought, "Man, I didn't know her really at all. Not really. And one moment she was little and small and young and frail, and there was always tomorrow, all those tomorrows, and all that hope which goes with all that time, and I was going to get to know her better and better, was going to apologize for all the things I said but shouldn't have, and for all the things I didn't say but should have." Yup. But that's okay: It's that time of the year, still. And come January, come month's end, I leave for New York City. I wish I were going home, but I'm too old for that trip, way too old. Yup. But, still, it is that time of the year and all that.

So there are wars going on all over the globe. Starvation is like, everywhere at once. People are hurting, are . . . well, they ain't living like celluloid citizens do live, and that's terrible. That's tragic and it's sad, cause we each get just once to live. Yup. Just the once. And we never get to do it again. Not at any time of the year.

To JENNIFER, age 15 -- For the most part, none of us ever even knew you. You weren't here long enough for that. But it wasn't your fault.