Missing from the fabulous game Whack-A-Wingnut: a chance to whack John Gibson with a War-On-Christmas Tree. I'd also like to whack the lot of them with the Fairness Doctrine. Otherwise, perfect.
Open Thread below.
(Jean Shepherd - Occupation: Cheerful Chaos Merchant)
Living on the West Coast, I didn't have the opportunity of experiencing Jean Shepherd as so many in New York did. I got it by way of rumor, his album on Elektra and his syndicated radio show that periodically ran on KPFK. I heard he was good friends with a lot of the Beat Generation poets, and growing up with a well-thumbed copy of "A Coney Island Of The Mind" in my high school notebook, anyone who was anywhere near that scene had to be a hero of mine.
Years later, I ran across a collection of tapes which featured his live shows and a bunch of his studio shows from the early 60's, which this is one.
Shepherd is pretty much known today as the guy who wrote "A Christmas Story". And even though it's achieved a kind of "classic Americana" status - it doesn't really explain who Shepherd was and why he was so loved by everyone who heard him. His was a skewed vision of the world, often darkly humorous and completely iconoclastic.
To a 16 year old mind, he was just what the doctor ordered.
Christmas sure has a lot of songs, but 4th of July not so many. This one by Soundgarden is a fantastic slab of total sludge that's buried toward the end of their classic album Superunknown, and I always skip ahead to it.
"Fourth of July" by X is another great one.
What will you be spinning at your BBQs this weekend?
From Headzup:
After saying that if a president does it, it's not illegal, Vice President Dick Cheney is visited by the ghost of Richard Nixon.
Chris Farley reminding me that he was one funny S.O.B. while he was still with us. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone. My family had a good chuckle together when watching this today. I hope you do as well.
I'm not sure if South Park has ever been funnier than its first episode ever.
Enjoy. For the most part, we'll be taking the day off today like normal folks.
But as far as I'm concerned, Mary is always going to look a lot like Imogene Herdman - sort of nervous and bewildered, but ready to clobber anyone who laid a hand on her baby. And the Wise Men are always going to be Leroy and his brothers, bearing ham. When we came out of the church that night it was cold and clear, with crunchy snow underfoot and bright, bright stars overhead. And I thought about the Angel of the Lord - Gladys, with her skinny legs and her dirty sneakers sticking out from under her robe, yelling at all of us everywhere: 'Hey! Unto you a child is born!'
"The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" - Barbara Robinson
Here is how this book begins: "The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker's old broken-down toolhouse." These truly nasty kids bully their way into the lead roles in a church Christmas pageant because they want hot chocolate and cookies, and by the end of the book, their unexpected Christmas spirit has us in tears.
What can I say? I'm such a sucker for a redemption story. Whether it's Scrooge, the Herdmans, George Bailey, the Grinch, little Susan Walker - or me, I just can't resist the story of someone who once was blind, but now they see.
This is what I wish for all of you this Christmas: To see, to fly above the despair. To understand why Christmas resonates throughout the world, even in places where they don't especially care (or even believe) that Jesus was born in a manger.
Happy holidays! h/t Case.
Check out their version of The Hallelujah Chorus for a little more.
Redneck Mountain Dew Christmas Tree, or the ultimate in aluminum recycling? You decide! (h/t Mickey Finn)
Open thread below...
C&L will be hosting a Christmas party with the Drinking Liberally crowd in Santa Monica tonight at 7PM....
The club is called TRIP and the address is 2101 Lincoln Blvd, 90405
There will be some food and drink...see you there.
One of the tamer photos from the Austin, Texas "Santa Rampage." h/t Truth and Beauty. Open thread below...
There's probably no more dangerous place on the planet than being positioned between marauding shoppers and their objects of desire on the morning of Black Friday -- as one unfortunate man discovered today:
A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.
The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.
Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.
"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."
Maybe it's time for people to start getting some perspective on "holiday bargains." Because this is just sick.
Of course, we are supporters of avoiding this madness altogether by supporting Buy Nothing Day.
We know Barney wants to be in the cabinet. Could he do any worse than Rumsfeld?
