Hoping you find everything you ever wanted under your Christmas tree too.

I love holdiay traditions. Especially when that means not having to come up with new blog content to amuse y’all. So this year you get – once again – the ever popular ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas (aka The Soi Twilight Soi Stroll) updated, of course, with new holiday meat. By now you should know all the words, so feel free to sing along:

Twas the night before Christmas, when all down the soi,
Sex tourists were creeping, in search of a boy.
Neon lights were all strung – god only knows how,
While barkers yelled loudly their call of, “Show Now!”

The boys were all listless, but strutting their stuff,
Each a vision of youth, lined up in the buff.
Mamasan was in drag, the captain in a tux,
The boys were all wistful of making some bucks.

When out on the soi arose such a clatter,
The bar emptied out to see what was the matter.
The barkers were shouting, the soi all astir,
While at Maxi’s and Dick’s they all downed more liqueur.

The moon over Bangkok, red lights all aglow,
Brewed a promise of sex in the scene down below.
When, what to their wondering eyes should appear,
But a rare sight these days: a live customer!

Avoiding the touts, he made quite a mad dash,
And they knew right away it just might mean some cash.
Mamasan got busy, big profits her aim,
She shrilled out her orders, calling each boy by name.

“Hey Somwang! You Sompong! Little Lek boy, Aek too!
Now Tui, Wit and Mongon! Come On! All of you!
Get up on the stage now! Get out of your clothes!
Hurry up and look lively! Get into your row!”

The music began as the lights went to dim,
The boys eyed the doorway; an old man stepped in.
With an insincere wai, then an order of beer,
The boys began dancing now that payday was here.

With candle wax dripping, hard cocks to enjoy,
Mamasan saw dollars, and asked, “You want boy?”
The old man was drooling, abandoned to fate,
“Too many to choose from, but I’ll try number eight.”

“Where you from? Where you stay?” the cute bar boy cried.
“ I tink I love you,” the cute bar boy then lied.
The old man was smitten in a blink of the eye,
“How much will this cost me?” “Up to you,” the reply.

The show wasn’t over, live sex acts still on tap,
“Tip Me!” screeched the boy fucking on the falang’s lap.
“Everyting,” was the promise of what he could do,
So the check bin was tallied, the off fee paid too.

They strolled down the sidewalk: a straight boy, an old queer,
It wasn’t a long walk, the hotel was quite near.
Suriwongse has rooms, for rent by the hour,
A quick dash upstairs, then into the shower.

With lights turned down low – this bar boy was sure modest!
It took near forever, to get him undressed.
The blue pill kicked in, the falang started to stroke,
Then pointed at his cock, and gently asked, “Sa-moke?”

The boy spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
He blew, then he sucked, and finished off with a jerk.
Cleaning up with a tissue from head down to toes,
And giving a nod, off the bed he then rose.

His smile was heart melting, a quick kiss, just some lip,
With a sweet gracious wai he accepted his tip.
“Melly Clitmas to you,” he said at the door,
“I tink I take taxi, please 500 baht more?”

Wishing You, Yours
– and the guy you paid to spend the night with –

A Very Warm and Merry Christmas!

Not all good presents come wrapped.

There are a lot of Christmas tales, stories, and traditions out there. But really not enough when you are into your fourth year of sharing twelve holiday tales each holiday season. I think next year I’ll be covering Hanukkah. ‘Cuz some of those Jewish boys are hot too. Which, as a segue into today’s tale isn’t all that great ‘cuz there’s nothing kosher about the Christmas pickle. And while it doesn’t quite have the draw that Spain’s pooping log does, the origin of the pickle’s tie-in to the time of that jolly old elf is nonetheless just as cloudy and unknown as are why sugar plums ever got associated with the holidays. That most try to blame the Germans is just icing on the cake.

The tradition of the Christmas pickle is easy enough. And equally as stupid. Late on Xmas night some unlucky member of the household hangs an ornament shaped liked a pickle on the tree, preferably in a well-hidden spot. Hidden works best both because otherwise people will know you hang a pickle ornament on your tree and because otherwise it clashes with and is easily mistaken for your gay uncle’s dildo ornament.

Early Christmas morning the family plays find the pickle (your gay uncle played a similar game the night before). The child who finds the pickle (the one on the tree, not the one your gay uncle keeps whispering to him about) gets a special gift from Santa. And the adult who does the same gets a year of good fortune. Even if he or she would rather have a present from Santa. I told ya it wasn’t as cool as the pooping log.

I know. It’s not a pickle tie-in. So let’s just call him Heinz and say it’s a done deal.

The Germans got blamed because Germany used to produce hand blown glass ornaments, some in the shape of veggies. And as every good lesbian knows, pickles come from cucumbers which makes them a veggie too. Supposedly, this tradition was introduced to America when Woolworth’s began importing those ornaments in the 1890s. But the dates don’t add up and those in the know have let the Germans off the hook on this one. It’s not like we don’t already have enough to blame on the Germans anyway. Not that they are completely off the hook. ‘Cuz no one has ever held them accountable for sauerkraut. It was a Bavarian born dude who evidently was really the source for this tradition anyway. And like all good Xmas tales, it’s about hunger and death.

For this Christmas tale we harken back to 1864 and the American Civil War, aka The War Between The States, aka The War Of Northern Aggression. Or as FOX News calls it, The Good Old Days. Private John C. Lower, aka Hans Lauer, enlisted in Pennsylvania’s 103rd Infantry, which, as an infantry kinda sucked. Unless you were big on losing. And being captured by the Rebels. Which our German-born hero – who we will from here on in call HansPFC – was, and summarily sent to a prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia in April of that year.

HansPFC suffered through his time as a prisoner of war ‘cuz you know how dreadful summers in the south can be. But winters are no better, and come Christmastime HansPFC was finished, over, done, kaput. Knowing that he was in a real pickle and that his days were numbered to the single digits, on Christmas Eve he begged a prison guard to give him a pickle. At least that’s how the story goes. Not that asking for a pickled cucumber as your last meal makes a lot of sense. Personally, I think what happened was the guard told HansPFC that if he let him play hide the pickle he’d give him some food. But then as Christmas traditions go that probably wouldn’t be too popular of one. Except among shopping mall Santas.

So HansPFC got his pickle in one form or another, and it saved his life. I know. But a lot of people believe in the Christmas tale of immaculate conception too. When HansPFC was eventually freed and returned to the bosom of his family, he started the tradition of hiding a pickle on the family’s tree every year in honor of that guard and the good times they had together.

I don’t actually know anyone whose family follows this tradition. And the Germans deny they had anything to do with it. Like they do with most things they are blamed for. But the country does still export a lot of glass pickle ornaments. Wink. Wink. And if I can find some green dildos in time, I’m giving them to my lesbians friends for the holidays so that they can start a new holiday tradition of their own.

I’d like to hang my balls on him for the holidays.

Oooops. My bad. Here it is the 10th day of Xmas already and unless you are one of those cheap bastards who wait for Christmas Eve to put your tree up ‘cuz the lots are all selling them at half off, then you’ve already been enjoying a week or two of one of the holiday’s most popular traditions: filling your home with toxic molds.

If you are like many people, you’ve probably come down with a bad cold mid-December of Christmases past and assumed it was one of the joys of winter that you just have to deal with, undoubtedly brought on by all those snot-nosed walking plague-ridden children at the mall. That’s what you get for not doing your holiday shopping on-line. But even those of us who click on Amazon.com to do our holiday shopping may still come down with a nasty bug. It turns out there is a good reason we don’t drag dying trees into our homes the other 11 months of the year. That’s because they are giant allergen-producing potential killers. No wonder the Germans like to claim they are the ones who came up with the idea of the Christmas tree.

Safe sex is possible, a safe Xmas tree not so much.

Since lice and other creepy crawlers were just part of life back in the day, bringing a once but no longer living tree into your home for the holidays didn’t have much of an impact on your family’s health. But pine trees are covered in mold. And thanks to the warmth of modern-day housing and central heat, those mold spores multiply more than six fold before you even get your tree decorated. Thanks to your holiday spirit, there’s a fungus among us, and your Christmas tree could give you the gift of a hospital visit. ‘Cuz while you’re decorating your tree, your tree is decorating your home with thousands of tiny, fuzzy bits of mold, bacteria, and bugs.

One study tested various kinds of pine trees and found 53 different types of mold, 70 percent of which could lead to respiratory problems, up to and including bronchitis and pneumonia. And if you think you’re going to outsmart Death by setting up a fake tree, those plastic abominations are covered in a year’s worth of dust, all of which gets dispersed in the room when you set it up. So don’t be surprised if you give your friends and family an asthma attack for Christmas.

And let’s not forget about those choking hazards too.

But wait! There’s more! Traditionalists enjoy nothing more than cutting up their tree and burning it in the fireplace after the holidays. Generally, fire is a good method for destroying molds and bacteria. Heating up those growing in and on your tree, not so much. Along with that warming cackle and pop your tree makes as it’s burning to death – and do I have to bring up the Germans again? – your tree gets the last laugh. As the wood warms it releases even more bacteria into the air. And into your home. Just in case the first wave of bacterial invaders didn’t get you.

So happy holidays! Merry Christmas! And enjoy your Christmas tree. But you just might want to wear a haz-mat suit in your home during the holidays. That might not be gay apparel, but it will keep you alive.

Just in case you were dreaming of a white Christmas.

It’s Christmastime and if you are like me by now thanks to well-intended by clueless straight friends and family, you’ve got rainbows coming out of your ass. That’s a lot of re-gifting to do. Whatever happened to the traditional gift of giving a bar boy for Christmas? Since the holidays are all about traditions (even if they miss that important one) here’s some advertising from the better days of America you can use as a hint for those who insist on focusing on your gayness when selecting Christmas gifts:

The cool thing about gay Xmas light sets is that you don’t actually have to put them up. Just leave the box mounted by your front door. It helps keep Jehovah witnesses and Mormon missionaries from ringing your doorbell.

And they come down with very little pressure too.

Tickets for a gay cruise is a nice gift. When the on-board entertainment is a guy with puppets, not so much.

Ha! I new there was something suspicious about that mouse!

Kinda makes you wonder what else is easy on Santa’s throat.

And that is pretty gay. Especially since they had a dyke pose for the ad.

No comment.

‘Cuz nothing says Juicy Fruit like a bunch of horny sailors.

Betty is a lipstick lesbian and it has nothing to do with her period.

Now that marijuana is being legalized, I think it’s time to bring cocaine back to supermarket shelves too.

Okay, so the plastic bag your dry cleaning comes in is cheaper, but hey – whatever works!

Huh. Aloha must mean Merry Christmas in Hawaiian too.

I don’t know about you, but lately its been visions of budding Filipino porn star Ken Ott that’s been dancing in my head and not sugar plums. ‘Cuz I don’t even know what sugar plums are. And the only sugar plum fairy I know of is a rather obese drag queen who’s just a bit too campy for my taste. But since it’s Aloha Friday, and since sugar plums sound suspiciously like crack seed, I thought I’d let Google inform me just what in the hell all the fuss is about sugar plums. And Google sent me to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia too hasn’t a clue. Oh, some troll snuck in an answer. But it’s wrong. Sugar plums have nothing to do with plums, and nothing to do with the fact that plums were once preserved by boiling them in sugar. I’m as right in claiming Noom has a pair of sugar plums hanging between his legs as Wikipedia’s answer is. So it turns out that no one else is quite sure what sugarplums are, despite their fame during the holidays. Kinda like Boxing Day. Everyone’s heard of it, many take the day off as a holiday, but no one can tell you about its origin. I’ve got a sneaky suspicion that considering what is loosely referred to as British cuisine, sugarplums and Boxing Day are both British inventions. Then again, maybe Christmas pudding was a serious enough offense against the holidays that we should let the Brits off on this one.

No problemo. To get to the heart of the matter of what sugar plums are, one only has to go to the source of why most of us associate them with Christmas: Clement Clark Moore’s A Visit from St. Nicholas, aka. Twas the Night Before Christmas, in which the children were nestled all snug in their beds while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. The one thing we all know about children is that they are all greedy little bastards. And nothing exemplifies the spirit of Xmas like greed. So much so the annual Black Friday melee at Walmart should be known as The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies.

Nice set of sugar plums, dude.

So let’s harken back to the days of old when the classes were well-defined and well-divided – or as the Republicans refer to them ‘when America was the America I grew up in – and when the world was made up of the haves and the have-nots for a Christmas tale of corporate greed and how it ruined a sweet deal for the job creators of that age. ‘Cuz being a 1%er in those days was an especially plum job.

Being an aristocrat in the 1500s had many advantages. And surely beat the shit out of being poor. Slavery was alive and well, and subjugating conquered people was a popular pastime among the rich. Child labor was just referred to as labor, and the only minimum wage in existence was that the wages of the lower classes were kept to a minimum. Not that any of that has anything to do with sugar plums. I just thought I’d remind you how good things once were. So along with treating the masses as a disposable resource, the rich of the day were constantly striving to find things to set themselves above their fellow man, preferably thanks to the sweat of said fellow man. And one of the sweetest ideas they came up with were sugar plums.

Sugar plums were a type of confectionery. But not just any confectionery. Some poor slob (preferably one you owned) spent several days toiling over a hot oven to make a single batch of sugar plums. They started with a central seed or kernel – caraway seeds, almonds, and cardamom seeds were popular – and laboriously built successive layers of hardened sugar around the seed in a process called panning. Each layer had to be allowed to harden before the next layer of sugar could be applied. The process was slowly continued until the resulting piece of candy was the size of a small plum. Hence the name sugar plum. You’ll note no where in the recipe was an actual plum used. But undoubtedly the sweat of the poor person making them added an entirely new level of sweetness to the candy.

Looks like a sugar plum fairy to me.

Obviously, sugar plums were considered a luxury good, and were most likely to be found in an aristocrat’s pocket or served between courses at a rich person’s banquet. So Moore’s children nestled in their beds weren’t just dreaming about candy that they didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever tasting, but of the riches and life of luxury they hoped would one day be their’s. ‘Cuz even if the have-nots never got to try a sugar plum, they all knew what they were (probably because when a 1%er got to that nasty caraway seed in the middle of his he’d spit it out at the closest poor person). Ahhhh. Good times.

As a symbol of the lifestyle of the rich and infamous, sugar plums were quite popular and quickly entered the lexicon of the day. If your ‘mouth was full of sugar plums’, it meant that you spoke sweet but undoubtedly deceitful words. ‘Cuz even the rich don’t trust the rich. And if you ‘stuffed another’s mouth with sugar plums’, that referred to paying someone a bribe. Because they had lobbyists to protect rich people’s interests back then too. Soon everyone shortened the term to plum, and the Brits – ya knew the Brits would come into it sooner or later – used plum as slang for 100 pounds, or more generally, a big pile of moola. Plum eventually came to mean any especially desirable thing: a prize, a choice job, or a station in life. All of which were reserved for the enjoyment of the haves. When it came to plums, the have-nots were plum out of luck.

Now if your face has been turning those funny colors it tends to while you’ve been muttering, “But, but, but . . .” because I started this tale off by claiming your familiarity with sugar plums was due to Moore’s famous Christmas poem about childhood greed, and you are a cultured gay who wants to claim it’s your love of The Nutcracker instead, let’s take a quick look at what is probably Tchaikovsky’s most famous piece of work. in Act Two, the Land of Sweets is ruled by the Sugar Plum Fairy while Prince Coqueluche is out getting a bit of strange on the side. Because that’s what the rich did in those days. It’s also why they came up with the idea of serving wenches. ‘Cuz even among the poor you occasionally ran across fish that was beddable.

The real question of the day is since Tchaikovsky was gay, why did he compose a ballet about some poor dude’s nuts getting cracked?

So with Chocolate and Candy Cane in the house, you’ve probably wondered why in the hell Sugar Plum got to be head confectionery. Or at least questioned that role when you were not busy checking out the prince’s massive bulge and his lovingly encased taut buttocks. Uh, hello? I just explained that to you. So now can I get back to my tale? Geesh! You ballet gays plum tire me out.

So things were going well, the rich were rich, the poor were getting poorer, and life was sweet thanks to having a sugar plum or two to suck on. But it’s not enough to enjoy the poor getting poorer when you are rich, getting richer has its draw too. And nothing said greater corporate profits in those days than the Industrial Revolution. Thanks to steam heat and mechanized machinery the haves found they could get even more production out of their employees than before without paying them a penny more, and with only the occasional loss of a poor person when he, she, or it (as children were properly referred to in those days) fell into said mechanized machinery. ‘Cuz the socialist hadn’t invented OSHA yet.

Unfortunately that also meant the advent of mechanized rotating pans. And less-skilled workers could now make larger batches of sugar plums more easily. In quantity. At a much lower price. So soon it was sugar plums for all. And not just sugar plums. The falling price of sugar and the invention of labor-saving machinery meant all manner of small candies were heaping up on the confectioner’s counter. That’s how we got M&Ms. And how a once noble confectionery reserved for the enjoyment of the haves became plentiful and available to anyone with a sweet tooth. And once sugar plums were no longer a symbol of success, everyone realized that as a piece of candy, they kinda suck. Which is why no one knows what they are, or were, today.

No more sugar plums to be had? I’m sure you can find something else to suck on for the holidays.

Now you’d think the moral of this story is the danger of corporate greed and how it can lead to the loss of entitlements almost as valuable as profits. But the real lesson here is that when you have something sweet that the masses can’t afford to enjoy you need to sneak a law banning them from its use into an unrelated piece of has-to-be-passed legislation. Like a appropriations bill. Or the federal budget. Like Congress just did to repeal the Dodd-Frank derivatives rule that was supposed to isolate risky trading of those financial instruments that played a major role in the 2008 financial crisis when we broke the world’s economy from parts of a bank eligible for a government bailout. Or to put it another way, when you spend $1.5 million per day to buy influence in Washington, you can expect a few juicy plums to fall your way. Hee, hee, hee. Oooops, my bad. I meant ho, ho, ho.