Nature. Beauty. Gratitude. A Good Day.

Best wishes to you and yours...love and light...Alex

Feliz Navidad!

Whether Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, Pagan, Indigenous, Spiritual-But-Not-Religious, Church of Argentine Tango...

"Here's to us all! God bless us every one."
[Tiny Tim's toast in The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens]

I sincerely hope this season finds you warm and well and happy, spending time with family and friends, with love in your life.

Yours truly,

Alex

Gift Ideas for the Man in Your Life :: Alex v. Cosmo Magazine

I'll unhide this...but file it under "Drivel"...


The other day I saw this really stupid thing on Facebook from Cosmopolitan Magazine: "What to buy your boyfriend for Christmas!"

Curious, I clicked on the link, only to be disappointed beyond disbelief. Lame. Really lame bordering on asinine and an insult to any man's intelligence. More mindboggling-ly-ness-ish. Whatever. The fuck.

So, I thought I would come up with my own "Gifts for the Man in Your Life" as alternates to the selections from Cosmo.

Here ya go...as always, would the two of you readers please let me know what you think? Thanks in advance!

Happy Holidays, bah humbug, and Joy to the World. Seriously, and not necessarily in that order.



Cosmopolitan Magazine: Dirty Joke Book
AlexTangoFuego: The Way of the Superior Man by David Deida

Sidenote: Gentlemen tell funny jokes, not dirty jokes. I have remembered only one joke over the years, and it works every time. Told only when the rare and appropriate opportunity presents itself.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Jack Robie Men's Shirt [$115]
AlexTangoFuego: Ike Behar White Dress Shirt with French Cuffs (or a Lucky Brand Cowboy Shirt with pearl snaps as an alternate)

Sidenote: Only so he can now wear the killer one-of-a-kind cufflinks you searched the world over to find. And yes, even a hillbilly like me can find an opportunity to wear French cuffs/links - even if it's only once a year - on New Year's Eve, or bringing Mom to church at St. Mark's.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: NASCAR Race Car Ride
AlexTangoFuego: Argentine Tango Lessons

Sidenote: If your guy is into NASCAR, he ain't a "real" man. Dump him. Now. Tango gives him that same counterclockwise ronda, only navigating as slowly as humanly possible through the crowd, and much, much more manly.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: DVD "Get Him to the Greek"
AlexTangoFuego: DVD "Baraka"

Sidenote: What the fuck?




Cosmopolitan Magazine: Piece of Ireland [$49.99]
AlexTangoFuego: Photography Book of Ireland, or Greece, or Italy or...

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Beatles Album Cover Coasters
AlexTangoFuego: Beatles Book or actual CD or iTunes Gift

Sidenote: Again, what the fuck? Coasters? What kind of man wants Beatles coasters? If you really want to get him some coasters, make them yourself, like Martha Stewart would. Find a local steel supply house or fabrication shop, ask them to cut you some 1/4" steel plate into 3-1/2" squares and grind them smooth. Then go to Tandy leather and buy some heavy suede leather. Glue that to one side (the bottom) of the steel plates, and trim and file it smooth. With foot file. Or, go to your local blacksmith, he or she will do it up right - handforged, with hammer marks and patina and bluing. Ah, and a sprayed on clearcoat, or dark natural waxed finish (car wax will do).

Those will be coasters worthy of a man.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Apple Remote
AlexTangoFuego: Apple Shuffle (if they still make it) Or, even cooler, an Apple Airport Express (even if he has a PC). It will allow wireless streaming of music from PC or MacBook to stereo or boom box. Very cool.

Sidenote: Now he won't have any excuses not to get out there and jog and/or ride the mountain bike. Music = movement.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Fake Parking Tickets (to hand out to enemies???)
AlexTangoFuego: Louise Hay daily affirmation cards in a box - just get the most manly ones you can find. I have these, they were my second ex-wife's, but she left them with me.

Sidenote: Gentlemen don't have enemies, they have friends. And if he's into giving out fake parking tickets, he needs the daily affirmations. Badly.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Chocri Chocolate
AlexTangoFuego: Any kind of gourmet dark chocolate - check Whole Foods. If all you have is a Piggly Wiggly, a plain 'ol Hershey Bar will do.

Sidenote: This Chocri shit looks like...like...well...shit.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Grooming Kit
AlexTangoFuego: A straight razor and a strop and a cool brush/cake/cup. Or a vintage Gillette Safety Razor (like our Dads used) with the double edged blades.

Sidenote: We don't do "kits". Unless it's a set of Klein screwdrivers or a couple of 18 volt driver/drills in a box with extra batteries.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Corporate Flashcards
AlexTangoFuego: Dominoes (the little rectangular things with dots on them)

Sidenote: My dad played dominoes, and I still look forward to learning and playing on a little flimsy card table with a group of like-minded men. Human interaction, male bonding, exercising your brain - always wins out over any kind of corporate mumbo-jumbo malarkey BS.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Mini Air Hockey Table [$22]
AlexTangoFuego: Tickets to an actual hockey game.

Sidenote: Even if he's not into hockey, this will be fun as shit, trust me. (Fun as shit is a good thing.)

Cosmopolitan Magazine: DVD Trilogy/Set (aka "Kit") "Back to the Future"
AlexTangoFuego: DVD Set (okay, a "Kit") "John Adams The Miniseries" or at least the unrated version of "The Hangover" or if you're into trilogies - box set of "The Lord of the Rings". The book/s. Okay, I guess the film would be okay.

Sidenote: You've got to be fucking kidding me...!? Maybe he'll find a role model in John Adams or Thomas Jefferson.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Toms Shoes
AlexTangoFuego: Toms Shoes

Hard to argue with. This is a good cause. But don't git'cher little feelings hurt if he never wears them and gives them to GoodWill.

Cosmopolitan Magazine: Binoculars from REI
AlexTangoFuego: Binoculars from REI, and a bird identification book.

Again, hard to argue with, and get him an REI membership, too, while your at it. And don't get pissy if you catch him scoping out the babes on the other side at the ice hockey game when you come back from the bathroom. Go easy on him, he's only looking, not touching. He's there with you, and going home with you, and waking up with you, right? Right.

That's the end of my alternate selections for your consideration. The Cosmo thing made me wonder who wrote that piece up, and who on the editorial staff approved it. They must/might have early 20 something bimbettes running their Facebook presence. It sounded like shit that the girls working at McDonald's and Wendy's would talk about on their breaks. "I'm getting my Johnny a mini-air hockey game for Christmas! Maybe he'll ask me to marry him!"

Beam me the fuck up, Scotty.




AlexTangoFuego Exclusives:

Random other stuff I thought up and/or saw sitting around my office...

Telescope - a good one - for y'all to ponder the Universe together on cold starlit nights. And to look at the lunar eclipse tonight on the Winter Solstice - oops! Too late!

Anvil - Peddinghaus drop forged, #12, 275 pounds. But, ladies, be damned sure there's some blacksmith in him first. This is just the beginning of a substantial investment of time and money. You won't see much of him for long stretches of time, but he'll make you a one-of-a-kind-in-the-universe pot rack or blow dryer hook or lipstick storage thingamajigger.

Journal - leather bound. For him to express his inner-most desires and feelings. Think Hemingway or Jack Kerouac.

Books - photography, of the coffee table variety; poetry, of the Neruda or Robert Service variety; classics of the Iliad & The Odyssey variety.

Longneck zip-up coozies - practical stocking stuffers - for long days in the forge learning how to use that anvil, or at least with his feet propped up on it writing in the leather journal. With a six-pack of Miller High-Life, The Champagne of Beers, long necks.

On the beer subject, a cast, handpainted nekkid lady church key. It doesn't work, e.g. it won't actually open a beer bottle, but I like it. It's hanging in a tree next to the BBQ grill.

Ah! SSTL BBQ grill. Nice-ish ones have come down hugely in price over the past few years. The less expensive ones are not 100% stainless steel [sstl] and lighter gauge, but more than adequate. Like $299-ish. Or something along those lines. Check Home Depot or Lowe's although I loathe those joints - you can't beat the pricing.

Wall calendar - not puppies, but maybe horses or Ansel Adams photography or Sierra Club wilderness ones. Y'all don't like 'em cluttering up the walls, but we do like 'em. They have replaced our adolescent posters of Farrah Fawcett's nips on the back of our bedroom door, only now we're more sophisticated, and the FF image is permanently burned into the solid state random access memory banks. (Every American man who just read that, now has pulled the image up in his mind's eye...I guarantee it...but I digress....)

Letter opener - not just any 'ol letter opener. One like this. Good luck finding it. If you get him the anvil, then he can make one like it.

A hammer - here are my favorites. Estwing straight/ripping claw. 28 ounce. Smooth face. Klein screw drivers. Milwaukee or Makita or Hitachi or DeWalt or Bosch power tools. No Black and Decker or other handyhomeowner brands. Good tools cost a lot, but last forever.

Tango Music - Guardia Vieja/Golden Age preferably. Hard to find though. This would have to be the subject of another post. Here is some Canaro on Amazon - Poema is a good one.

Wine - Far Niente, Cabernet. Or MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir. Good stuff either way. Far Niente is my dead cousin's winery in Napa, or Oak Hill.

Wine opener - Chateau Laguiole.

The common themes - humility, strength, honor, wisdom, intellect, creativity - iron, leather, stone, fire, heft, tactile, long-lasting, earthy, awe-inspiring - something he can pass on to the kids and then the grandkids. Something he will cherish and use for years and years - something beyond just the material aspect of it. Something with some soul and energy in it, ideally.

Hope this helps in some way/shape/form. I'm cutting myself off. I was about to start preaching. Instead, I'll leave you with this, something I found somewhere and wrote on the first page of that journal...

felíz navidad de mi casa el suyo

Click here for a blowup of the snow globe...it had a built in fan and was actually blowing faux snow inside...

I babelfished the title, so forgive me if the español no es bueno, plus, I recognize that it's not the same to take a saying like "merry christmas from my house to yours" and translate literally into español. But it's the thought that counts, right?

Oh, and that's not actually my house. It's one I passed in Bastrop, Texas today, saw the snow globe, and doubled back a few blocks to get a photo.

Beyond the obvious religious connotations, this being the birth day of Jesus and all, for me, Christmas is about love, spending quality time with family and friends, eating too much good food and giving of your heart and soul. The capitalistic, materialistic, fantastic, overdone, overblown, over-important 'giving' [consuming] that Christmas has become is an abomination in my mind. I won't go there. Ya'll know how I feel about that stuff.

Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, et al, agnostic, and atheist alike, I hope this Christmas Eve [and Hannukah season] finds you and yours in the best of health, with love and light in your life, belly full, and plenty of good tango for all.

Felíz Navidad...

Christmas wrapping...

Imagine a big oaf of a man, with 'Alley Oop' feet, rendered ever so slightly more graceful from four plus years of tango. Picture him scrunched and hunched on the wood floor wrapping a gift or two, in his torn at both knees button fly lucky brand jeans. Unshaven, unshowered for a day, a black ski hat with a tassle dangling, hiding his needing a haircut shaggy mane from the general public. Imagine his large, clumsy, alleyoop fingers, trying to tie a bow with real satin ribbon and make it all purty.

Not exactly a scene from GQ magazine. But knowing you women, ya'll probably find this kinda imagery sexy as hell.

You'll also note the evidence of my being the non-traditionalist, opting for black and white scroll in lieu of green and red Christmas-ey themed paper. Hey - it was in the Christmas section at Crate & Barrel...it must be Christmas paper right?

Guys click here.

Christmas is All Around Us

The character Billy Mack performing "Christmas is All Around Us" in a music video, from the movie "Love Actually". Although I don't remember seeing any of this in the movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWjl80WFBzY

Click on the "Love Actually" link above to check out the trailer...at 2:15, when the little girls start dancing to Hugh Grant and his driver caroling, it's hilarious...here's the entire scene...

O holy night, no joke this time...

Johnny Mathis...



Nat King Cole...with a cool yule log...



This truly is my favorite song at Christmas. When I was growing up, my dad had bought a Mormon Tabernacle Choir/London Philharmonic Orchestra Christmas album. The version of O Holy Night on that album is unbelievable. It would make me cry, it's so powerful. It's lost, and I can't find the album anywhere. One year, I spent hours searching online for it, but to no avail.

Oh well, I can still hear it in my head when I think about it.

Merry Christmas from the Fam-O-Lee

Robert Earl Keen...hallelujah, everybody say cheese...

Life :: Merry Christmas from the family by Robert Earl Keen

Forgive the very politically incorrect part about the Mexican boyfriend - that part makes me uncomfortable - but rest is pretty hilarious.