Weekly Briefing from the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker, 12/27/24

Down of a Thistle edition

Everyone here at the North Texas Apocalypse Bunker hopes you had a merry whatever-the-hell you were doing a few days back, or that you didn’t do anything at all, depending on your personal stance.

I never got my Christmas Mojo working this year, but I did finally get happy enough to not piss any of my relatives off, so we’re going to call that a win with an asterisk and just move on from there.

What did you get? Any good loot? Who pulled the wool over the Fat Man’s eyes and got a better gift than they deserved? Leave me a comment and a photo or two with your best Christmas “get” this year. I always like seeing how everyone else made out.

Mom

This is my mother. She’s a great cook, an inspired therapist, a talented painter and writer, and just an all-around swell person. One day I’ll go through all of the wacky Christmas stuff she pulled during my childhood; there are some fun stories, to be sure.

For years, she’s been asking for bagpipes for Christmas. This year, Santa finally came through.

The only way to get my mother in a photo is to do a quick candid. She hates having her picture taken. Otherwise, I’d show you the rest of the pics. I’m in enough trouble as it is.

I’m only including this photo so you can understand that I come by my “eclectic nature” honestly. Mom has been holding raucous noisemakers in her lap for as long as I’ve known her.

Mom said that my problem was, evidently, the Santa Hat, and I was dead set against it, but I was three months old in 1969, so I didn’t have any agency at the time. Also, she thought I was possessed until I was 7 or 8. No idea why.

We will be out in the field in the coming week, with the expressed intention of making a tour of the Apocalypse Bunkers near the Great Lakes area. Also, it would seem there are two presidential libraries in that area that we will be sure to investigate. I’m certain there will be an appropriate amount of photos taken in front of Balls of Twine, Houses of Matchsticks, the third largest Snake Farm in the Midwest, and any other interesting roadside attractions between here and Cleveland. Look for them in next week’s report.

For now, everyone use this time to get caught up on those streaming shows you have been meaning to check out and whittle away on the doubtless prodigious leftovers. Let’s all get ready for Elvis’ Birthday in two short weeks!

Mark Finn is one of the most opinionated and influential experts on Robert E. Howard in the state of Texas. He’s an author out of largesse rather than as a vocation and writes stories because he can’t play the guitar. He loves gorillas, values a well-placed conversational movie quote, and treasures the picaresque in literature. Annoyed with people’s misunderstanding of popular culture, he took it upon himself to buy a movie theater so he could lord it over every obnoxious film student on the Internet. He likes to say, “If three people tell you you’re drunk, go lie down.”