This post began its life as a Patrons-Only Post for the Phoole Patreon Platoon - the writing below is partly adapted from a longer post at patreon.com/phoole, which you are welcome to visit and join to support making more Phooliverse happen! Patrons get just a little bit extra.
Yesterday was furnace-and-air-conditioner-replacement day!
It was a LOUD DAY, and even the normally-unflappable Tony the Cat was FLAP'D. He wasn't having all the sheet-metal-sawing noise. I can dig it, Tony. I'm sorry, buddy. Angelo was buried under blankets upstairs and pretending none of it was happening. I'm so sorry, my sensitive-hearing-having little fur-beloveds.
Our furnace and air conditioner were 30 years old! They still mostly worked, but we could imagine a day soon when they would not work any longer, and they probably were not the most efficient and energy-conserving of beasts, so now they are gone, and two HVAC fellows and an electrician and an explainer-fellow were very busy all day putting in all the new things and training me in using the new thermostat. Did I want my thermostat to be able to play music? No, I did not, to the surprise of Thermostat Explainer-Man. Everything else in my house plays music. It is superfluous to also ask this of the thermostat. It is fine for that to just stat the thermo.
In honor of our new heat source, and also in honor of humans having wrecked our home planet, and this wreckage causing us to be fairly certain of a warm, dry, green Phooletide this year, I am doing a Phoole and the Gang show tonight that is all about HEAT.
The image I'm using to flog the show this week is from the Rankin/Bass 1971 stop-motion animation Christmas television special The Year Without a Santa Claus. Click here to enjoy Mr. Heat Miser's special song. Heat Miser and Cold Miser are brothers who detest each other and battle perpetually to dominate the world's weather - in the show. In reality, we all know that it is actually Jewish Space Lasers which control weather and cause wildfires. This is a theme I'm debating reviving for a show this winter. While I do love doing space-themed shows with a little klezmer thrown in (YES KLEZMER), and I so enjoy dressing Uncle Fweddy up in his spacesuit and space-helmet, the world at present, and until the US presidential election in November of 2024 at least, might not be ready for sarcasm on that level. I may not want to poke that particular space-badger. We'll see if it is a safe valve for our mutual burgeoning anxiety as fascism continues its assimilation of the mainstream.
Bask in the convivial warmth of Phoole & the Gang live tonight! It will be live at 6:00 p.m. Central US time at all of the usual places - https://slipmat.io/phoole, https://mixcloud.com/live/phoole and https://twitch.tv/phoole.
Baconmas is Nigh
NEXT Friday is when we will celebrate BACONMAS and BUY NOTHING DAY all at once, with a Phoole & the Gang show about greed, and consumerism, and Santa Bacon. If you are new to the Phooliverse and are like, "Who is this dapper, mustachioed ham-slice?", then please proceed to phoole.com/santabacon for briefing.