Another COVID Christmas, and some birthday wishes

“Dahoo Dores, Fahoo Fores/Welcome Christmas, come this way . . .”

Ah, pray tell, and what enchanting aromatics are these, wafting their perfumes so sweetly in the crisp holiday air?

Is that frankincense, I smell? Myrrh? Succulent Whoville roast beast? Ha! Dream on, bitches!

Uh huh, my fellow revelers, that’s right: Merrily, we all stand here, again, globally shackled in the frost of our togetherness, shambling into yet a third year now in a row, silently screaming against our forced entry into the bottomless maw of a world roiling in COVID unkillable.

No longer an anomaly, Rona, and her passel of demented, shapeshifting sisters, ain’t just pitching their camp tents here on Earth, en route to juicier killing fields. No, they made it to where they were heading. Destination: Earth!

Ever forward, each mutant year shall be slightly more zombie-worthy than the one preceding it.

In the beginning, way back now in that antediluvian era of the year 2020, the tastelessly unhinged Rona’s apocalyptic pod crash-landed, apparently, from outer space onto some provincial, previously unheard of iron-curtain nest of minions calling itself, of all laughable things, Wuhan; next, popping up her even uglier head out of nowhere, pod sister Delta, took over the reins for 2021. And now comes that preciously arduous little puddle of phlegm, our newest Tomb Patrol Chief Prison Guard of 2022, Bitch Mistress Omnicom? Omnicorp? Omarosa? Or whatever the fuck it is she politely calls herself.

One would think such terror-tweaking triplets as these three yeller-eyed scamps — capable of holding the entire world hostage, possessing all the allure of some blood-splattered tripod left abandoned in a jizz-reeking dungeon’s snuff film raid — ought to be minimally capable of putting their trident skullcaps of respiratory relinquishment together to come up with just some kind of representatively pithy acronym easily digestible for public consumption — these three wizened shrews holding Christmases past, present and future all in padlocks.

Unfortunately, RDO as an acronym — Rona, Delta and Omicron, abbreviated — doesn’t possess one scintilla of any ominously memorable zing. ODR, likewise, sure doesn’t have any zip to it. ROD, being that it’s a real word already, would only muddle the confusion further.

DOR, maybe? Nah. Wait, now! What if we just add another letter to that last one? Say, an “A”? I mean, hell, an A-named variant is bound to show up eventually. With DORA, we’re just beating ’em to the punch, is all. If you ask me, she’s welcome to cover the whole, representative bitch lot of ’em here on out.

DORA! So slimily innocuous, so harmlessly horrific. “Why, DORA, you grinning little rapscallion! Whatcha got hidin’ there behind your back? Come on, DORA, show Daddy whatcha found.” Purr-fect!

Alrighty then, my pretty little lost toys, everybody in unison now, ready? Set? Aaaaand, with a big ol’ holly-to-the-jolly, snap it — one, two, three: “DORA, you whore, stay away from me! Don’t want no kisses. Not one. Not three. DORA, you Grinch, where your heart be?”

“Dahoo Dores, Fahoo fores/Welcome Christmas, bring your cheer/Welcome all Whos, far and near . . .”

So to close the final Ask Howard column of this hideous year, my sweet tots, during this twinkling week leading up to Jesus’s birthday, allow me give a big Christmases past, present and future shoutout, please, to three dear friends of mine — each of whose birthdays also falls during this same festive week.

Firstly, I must blow a remembrance kiss up to my friend, Diane, the best true friend I ever made upon moving here to Dallas, way back 27 years ago now. Sadly, she was also the first one I lost. What was supposed to have been but a three-hour, same day in-and-out minor surgical procedure didn’t turn out quite as expected. At least Diane’s death wasn’t for naught: ever since, blood clot-preventative leggings have become mandatory for any patient undergoing surgeries necessitating bed convalescence afterwards. Beautiful Diane. I only wish we’d gotten to share this ride together a little longer, Sweetie, here on planet Earth.

Secondly, to a man who’s been a treasured friend of mine now, since from way back in my wild-child/youth-quaker days of giddy, unexpected success with my first novel right out the starting gate, at 23. There Louis stood, sparkling in the June sunshine, silver-haired and gleaming, as he ground-out a flicked cigarette butt upon the stoop of his Chelsea brownstone, nodding my way. “You Norwegian?” he grinned, while I skipped blondly by, to which I turned back, smiling, to answer, “I can be.”

I need to say to Louis, “Happy birthday, Sunshine! I hope you’re strong enough, still, to read this. But, don’t give up. Not yet. Hell, you’re radiant! You’re my only friend still around who also managed to maneuver blindly through that fuckin’ two-decades’ long stretch of untreatable, AIDS-laced minefields, and come out unscathed on the other side without so much as even a scratch. What’s a goddam little tumor, Louis? Just hold on. You can beat this! I’m coming home at Christmas — see you then, Sunshine!”

And, finally, in my homage of holiday closure here, so befitting the still rescuable hopes of next Christmas Future’s recovery, I’d like to give a Happy 30th salute of admiration to no cooler a dude you’d ever hope to meet than my friend, Clayton, whose 30th birthday just so happens, serendipitously enough, to coincide precisely with this very column’s publication date.

Blessed with rakishly handsome looks — think square-jaw bravura of KGB secret agent meets chiseled Olympian icon, Michael Phelps — famous within certain circles of town for his intrepid decency and moral trustworthiness, Clayton inadvertently reveals himself, over and over, to be one of the most conscientiously honorable persons I’ve ever known. They don’t make ’em much stronger than he. Must be something in Clayton’s background; as a former PJ (pararescue jumper) and an elite member of the Air Force’s Special Ops Command, it was Clayton’s former job, by definition, to lead humanitarian missions of rescue and recovery within combat environments. The right stuff required of a man to become a PJ is informally known as “Superman School.” Necessitating two full years to complete, it is the longest, most arduous military training course in the world.

The PJs’ motto — “These Things We Do, That Others May Live” — is, apparently, a life-long dedicated commitment to an ever-forward marching mantra. All I can say is, “Way to go, Clay! Trust me, it only gets easier from here out. Anyone with the goods to live to be 30, under such pressure-extremes as you handle daily, can surely glide it to 90. You’re just getting started, man!

“Dahoo Doores, Fahoo Forres/Christmas Day is here at last, so long as we have hands to clasp/Welcome Christmas, Christmas day!”

— Howard Lewis Russell

We all ask ourselves questions, some even crazier than me, and some shall ride agleam rocketships tiptop the Christmas tree! My gifted ones, send in brightly your 2022 dazzlers to AskHoward@dallasvoice.com.