Blue Christmas
Robert Johnson
Weekender 24/7
mySA – San Antonio Express News
12/12/2006
Folks in the newspaper business are kinda grinchy this time of year. Days off are hard-won; we’re jealous of people who actually get to close up shop and go home. Add in the usual holiday/family pressures and you have a recipe for crabbiness.
There are some positives. Like the sumptuous potluck we had today in the Features Dept. And especially the arrival of Michael Mehl’s and Ann Kinser’s Christmas card.
Most holiday cards sent to businesses are about as personal as a robocall. I sometimes display them in a pathetic attempt to make it look like I have lots of friends, but most go into the recycling bin. The Mehl/Kinser card, which arrived Monday, poses a different problem. It’s a hoot, but you can’t exactly display it without risking a visit from HR.
Mehl is a San Antonio photographer/musician/artist/writer and founder of Fotoseptiembre, the annual photography festival. On his Web site (find it here, but be aware it’s probably not safe for work), Mehl writes, “My visual work is mostly erotic; at times abstracted, at times, surreal.”
The cards from Mehl and his partner, Kinser, fall into the funny/ribald category. I neglected to save last year’s, but a colleague recalled it involved Santa consorting with a busty woman.
This year’s card, featuring Kinser’s artwork, is titled “Santa Pimps His Ride,” and depicts Santa in his sleigh on a city street. Only his “reindeer” are four ladies wearing reindeer horns, red high heels and not much else.
On the back, there’s a poem:
Onward Vixen! Onward Prancer! Onward Comet and Pole Dancer! This Pimped-Up Santa’s gotta go, ’round the hoods with his Merry Hos.
Back atcha. The problem is, what kind of card could you possible send them?
Robert Johnson
mySA – San Antonio Express News
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Naughty Christmas, the sequel
Robert Johnson
Weekender 24/7
mySA – San Antonio Express News
12/15/2006
When the annual eyebrow-raising Christmas card arrived from photographer/jack-of-all-trades Michael Mehl and his partner, artist Ann Kinser, I rummaged around through my stacks of crap to see if I’d saved any from years past. No such luck.
Columnist Susan Yerkes, packrat that she is, managed to dig up the one from 2004. It featured a naked brunette standing, back to the viewer, her butt framed by a holiday wreath. The greeting: “Merry Christmass!”
It goes nicely with the latest card, “Santa Pimps His Ride,” which depicts an urban Santa driving a sleigh powered by four nearly naked women.
Robert Johnson
mySA – San Antonio Express News
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Blue Christmas, the sequel
Robert Johnson
Weekender 24/7
mySA – San Antonio Express News
12/31/2007
Thanks to San Antonio artists Ann Kinser and Michael Mehl, Christmas in Weekender Land came a bit late last year and a bit early this year.
A year ago, I mentioned in Weekender 24-7 that the arrival of their naughty, funny Christmas card was always one of the highlights of my holiday season. Sexy humor isn’t exactly plentiful this time of year, and their cards always have both — sex and humor, that is. Last year’s card, “Santa Pimps His Ride,” featured four scantily-clad women (i.e., they were wearing antlers and thongs) pulling Santa’s sleigh through a decidedly urban environment. I wrote that I enjoyed this annual event (although it caused some understandable consternation among co-workers who also got the cards) and regretted the fact that I hadn’t saved cards from previous years.
A month later, I received this letter:
“Hi Robert, Ann and I were recently made aware of your December blog post regarding our infamous X-mas card. We want to convey our sincere appreciation for taking the time to put together a few thoughtful and appreciative paragraphs extolling the virtues of our shameless efforts …” To demonstrate their appreciation, they enclosed the entire collection of cards, some 15 years’ worth of ribald puns and images you can’t display on on your desk unless you want a visit from HR.
Anyway, what with the hectic holiday pace at work and at home, I had almost forgotten to mention this year’s addition to my collection. In “Santa Copes With Global Warming,” ol’ St. Nick has traded in his sleigh for a red canoe, the SSClaus, paddled by — you guessed it — four topless women. They’re coping with rising ocean levels (the Statue of Liberty is in water up to her armpit) by towing a raft full of presents.
The greeting on the back: “May your carbon footprint be festive this holiday season.”
Robert Johnson
mySA – San Antonio Express News
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Merry XXX-mas
Robert Johnson
Weekender 24/7
mySA – San Antonio Express News
12/23/2009
Last week, I wondered aloud, “Hey! I haven’t gotten my racy Christmas card from Michael Mehl and Ann Kinser yet! Did they stop doing them?”
“Uh, you should try checking your mail slot every now and then,” someone replied.
Sure enough, there it was in my mailbox — this year’s holiday greetings from the two artists, partners and provocateurs. This year’s edition features four topless women and a play-on-words of “Tis the season” that you can probably figure out. The sentiment on the flip side, “Wishing you a buxomly bountiful holiday!,” is touching.
Here’s the story behind this quirky tradition. The 2009 card (drawn by Kinser, as all the previous cards have been) is somewhere in the middle of the naughtiness scale, ranking ahead of the 2007 and 2008 cards (both of which had green/global warming themes and the women were drawn smaller) but waaayyyy behind the 2005 card, in which Santa is getting far more than milk and cookies on Christmas Eve, as a wide-eyed reindeer looks on.
Hallmark it isn’t.
For obvious reasons, I’m not including an image of the card, but Kinser has a slide show of some of the most recent cards on her Web site. WARNING: You might want to avoid checking them out at work.
Robert Johnson
mySA – San Antonio Express News
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