An Old School Yule

I'm old school, a crotchety old holdover. This comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me well, certainly not to my kids. Sure, I work online, and whatever share of international notoriety I've garnered wouldn't have happened without the Internet. But in a lot of ways I'm not that different from the classic TV dads of the '50s – Jim Anderson or Ward Cleaver.

On the afternoon of Christmas day, I looked up and saw Kate deeply entrenched in her new Game Boy thing. Max was working on his new computer. And Tori was learning all the things her Galaxy Tab can do.

And I was reading a book. John Cleese's memoir, "So, Anyway ..." My other major gifts were a cast-iron skillet, the kind that fits over two of the stove top burners, a pair of eight-pound dumbbells, and a really cool hat.

I'm not sure what style the hat is, it has the crown of a fedora and the rolled-up brim of a pork pie. I suppose I could snap the brim down to a point in front, but no. It's not as wide as a fedora brim, more like a trilby.

Besides, I like it the way it is. I'm a crotchety old fart, but I admit it, I'd like to think I'm still a little cool.

BOOK – "So, Anyway ..." is a really a good book. I've finished it by now, of course.

It's funny, of course, as you'd expect from a book by John Cleese. Surprisingly, it contains very little of his years with Monty Python and almost nothing directly about "A Fish Called Wanda." It stops right about the time Monty Python was taking to the airwaves and it's only the last couple of chapters that have much about the legendary comedy group. (There's a very funny bit about the origin of the justly famous cheese shop sketch, which includes a bout of real-life projectile vomiting.)

The book follows his growing up and into the kind of person who would end up as a Python. Great book.

The biggest thing that came across is how serious comedy is. As zany and wild as Monty Python was (and is on DVD and online) it was built by guys who took their comedy very seriously. Interestingly, they all saw themselves more as writers than performers, which was part of why they worked so well together. It was always about the joke, not about being a star.

But here's a question. Why do Englishmen, when telling you about their lives, ALWAYS start by telling you about their schools and the name of every master and teacher they had? There were two salient points to Cleese's school stories, maybe three – that he was a coward, that his mother was crazy, and maybe the fact that the teacher who seemed to be one of his greatest influences (but not for the reasons you think) had turned himself into the perfect Edwardian gentleman. And the schools days take about the first half of the book.

Then, almost 100 pages later, while he's talking about being a writer for David Frost, he mentions almost as a throwaway how as a boy he had loved comedy albums, collected them, studied them, tried to memorize and reproduce them. I think that's a lot more interesting, a lot more significant, coming from John Cleese than any number of rugby coaches and the headmaster who could get anyone to do what he wanted, except his wife.

It just goes to show, I suppose, how we don't always understand our own journeys. Makes me wonder what I'm missing, or fail to understand, about my own life.

Christmas Eve in Paradise

By Mad Sally

The day before Christmas in paradise. A day before Christmas just like any other day before Christmas. We've spent too much money and still have tons of shopping to do. Boxes and bags of potential delight hidden all over the house. Where's the wrapping paper? Do we have enough tape? What about batteries? There are never enough batteries on Christmas morning.

Shopping in paradise had been a challenge. The island seems to be about ten years behind in everything, especially commerce, so those little things on everybody's Christmas list are difficult to find, if not impossible.

Like fruit cake.

My mother wanted a fruit cake for Christmas. God knows why. They really are one of those (edible?) creations that would have been better left undiscovered. But she is of an age where fruitcake is a tradition.

Bless her.

But is there a single fruitcake on the island? Not that I have been able to find. I ask one of the many locals who sell their home-baked delectables in front of the gas station door, "Good morning" -always start the conversation with 'good morning,' 'good afternoon,' or 'good evening' or you will not get a reply- "Do you have fruit cake? My mom wants a fruitcake for the holiday."

With a look of incredulity, the confident, buxomly older woman dressed in a tight plaid apron with her hair wrapped high in matching plaid replies, "De fruitcake? I have de fruit bread, look at de fruit bread!" She grabs my hands and takes me to the back of her minivan, pulls out a bowling ball sized loaf of bread dotted with color, and thrusts it in my hands.

"What's in it?" I inquire with a smile.

"De fruit! De fruit be in de bread!" She laughs at me.

Stupid tourist.

I politely decline, which is a very difficult thing to do here as people with their insistent tones of voice and infectious passion for all things make it difficult to ever say no, and I quickly get away in hopes of finding a "real" fruit cake.

Needless to say, a few days later and 132 miles on the car, I should've taken "de fruit bread."

That is just an example of what is not available in paradise. There are no crossword puzzle calendars, no boxed sets of "Twilight," no CD section at the local Kmart, no reliable video game dealer, no copy of the movie "Amalie," no Bionicle "Mistika," and the list goes on. Sure if we'd been on top of it, we'd have ordered online in advance. But anybody who knows us understands that organized is not our forte.

Really, I am not complaining. It is just another aspect of my mentality that needs to adjust to island time:

Wants and needs require modification, accepting that desirable is the closest available option. In other words, take the fucking fruit bread.

Two days ago I spent the morning at the beach in Frederiksted, which, by the way, is a mere three minutes away from my front door. There was nobody else there.

Nobody.

I read a great book while lounging on the sand.

I snorkeled in the pristine cerulean waters.

I witnessed flying fish leaping out of the water.

I watched sailboats tack into the Caribbean trades.

So worth the loss of a fruitcake.

Mad Sally