Christmas Correspondence

Sending messages of holiday cheer. So, be cheerful, damn it!

In 1985, I got a TV tray and a Pound Puppy for Christmas. It was the best Christmas ever, the first celebrated at our new house in Deltona, FL.

My brother and two sisters gathered around the tree, joyous at the wrapped gifts Santa had brought us.

In ‘87, I got a “Racin’ Hoppers” race track, the very word in electric racing, and a Lazer Tag set the next year. Lazer Tag had the coolest-looking laser guns I’d ever seen. That was the next best Christmas ever.

Then, in ’93, I got a Super Nintendo, instantly rendering every previous Christmas obsolete.

There was nothing quite like growing up in the 1980s and 1990s. Everything was cool back then. Sure, I’m nostalgic for that time. Who wouldn’t be?

Rob Reiner (1947 – 2025)

We’ve had many great movies by the multi-talented Rob Reiner.

He made one of my favorite thrillers (Misery), one of the finest courtroom dramas (A Few Good Men), one of the best fantasy adventures (The Princess Bride), the iconic mockumentary (This Is Spinal Tap), and the perfect coming-of-age film (Stand by Me).

As an accomplished writer, director, actor, and producer, he also co-founded Castle Rock Entertainment, which gave us Seinfeld and The Shawshank Redemption, among other things.

The man was naturally gifted, and we’re fortunate that he shared his gift with the world. Like any accomplished artist, he strove for quality, which is in short supply with the slop they call entertainment these days.

“Slop” was also just deemed Merriam Webster’s word of the year. Imagine that.

There’s not much I can add about the horrifically tragic murder of Reiner and his wife, Michele, allegedly at the hands of their mentally disturbed son. No one deserves a fate like that, certainly not a man so clearly beloved in his industry.

He was an American icon and will be missed. But his movies will live on forever.

This was the same weekend of the Brown University shooting in Providence, RI and the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia, two terrible events from different sides of the world. Bad things happen every day, but we should also be thankful for the good that exists out there.

No one ever imagined that we’d hear about the double homicide of Reiner and his wife, but just like that, they’re gone.

Extraordinary Ineptitude

To make matters worse, the Bondi Beach shooting, directed at a Hanukkah celebration, went unimpeded for over 20 minutes as the ISIS-loving father & son psychos went on a rampage (just a few blocks from a police station).

It’s absolutely shameful that they weren’t stopped much sooner.

The U.S. isn’t doing much better. The handling of the Brown University shooting, from stone walling to gaslighting by the authorities, was about as baffling as it gets.

They named the wrong guy, released grainy, unhelpful photos, couldn’t tell the public what happened six hours after a campus shooting, waited days to interview witnesses, explained the lack of video surveillance footage as being due to “old buildings,” and stumbled around for days while the shooter was at large.

That goes for the University President, the police chief, the Providence mayor, and even the FBI. I’m no homicide detective, but how can a person commit a mass shooting in a crowded study hall in the middle of the day, run off, and completely evade the authorities? Was it the Invisible Man??

Eventually, they located the suspect inside a rented storage unit, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot. 48-year-old loser, Claudio Neves Valente, was found with two pistols and several magazines matching ballistics from the crime scene.

He was also linked to the shooting of an MIT professor days prior. The investigation continues but to what end?

Merry Christmas, Baby

Christmas ’91 was a good year. I got a handheld Terminator 2 LCD game, which enthralled me despite its graphical limitations. I thought of this strange relic only a few months ago, and then searched for it on eBay to prove its existence.

I try to resist purchasing long-lost toys from my childhood, like the mini Simpson pinball machine I got during the height of the Simpson craze in the early ’90s.

They’ve been on the air for almost 40 years. They’re even making a second movie due for release in 2026. I’m not one of those people who trash-talk the show and lament how it should have ended decades ago, though it’s certainly has its ups and downs.

The brilliance of the first 10 seasons are a distant memory, but as long as The Simpsons are still on the air, there remains some semblance of things unchanged.

I’ve still got a lot of years left, God willing, and I’m thankful for each day. Just keep me away from vintage eBay purchases. eBay and memory lane are a dangerous combination.

Happy Holidays to you & yours!