INTRODUCING Gus, the World's Most Passive-Aggressive Dog

“Cathy, I just LOVE how you don’t care how filthy your house is, I’m so jealous!”

 

LOVE IN AN ELEVATOR: A Poem by Xmastime

Business Ideas. I Have Them.

Someone should provide a service that should you drop dead, the podcast you were listening to at that moment automatically switches out to something nobody would be horrified to be found listening to.

EXEMPLI GRATIA:
Drop dead listening to Talking Fast: A Gilmore Girls Podcast
When they find your body they see you were listening to Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History

LOOKING FOR INVESTORS!! 💰💰💰💰

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), "didn't you have a similar idea back in 2007 about tv channels?"

Sigh. Yes I did, faithful readers, YES I did.

I Really Hope This isn't a Meep Meep! Sitch in the End

This is fantastic - while chasing the Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote is the perfect amalgamation of Cliff Clavin, Frasier Crane and Woody: curiously confidant in his non-existent intelligence, pompously full of bombast, and yet, in the end, utterly clueless. Perfect. - XMASTIME

Apparently there's a live action/cartoon movie of the Coyote suing the ACME Corporation:

The film is based on the 1990 The New Yorker magazine article "Coyote v. Acme" by Ian Frazier (itself using elements from the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies franchise), and follows Wile E. Coyote as he sues the Acme Corporation for repeatedly selling him alleged faulty products.

Hey! I've read that article! Lookit moi!

A few random thoughts: 

1. this is an incredible premise
2. I’m officially putting the odds of this premise being totally wasted/ruined here at about 99%
3. I’m not saying I’d do it, but what if they actually made it as a classic courtroom drama? Treat it like it’s the heaviest/most important thing in the world…THAT would be hilarious
4. I know I’m too old but I’m guessing I’ll be miserably overwhelmed by the frantic cinematography that will be blasting the audience every second of the movie
5. okay I guess my main point is just that I’m really bummed that someone had such a great idea (YES I AM JEALOUS!!!) but we all know it’s gonna end up being a pile of shit, which is too bad
6. BUT!! I will happily give it a try, and watch while hoping to be pleasantly surprised
7. is this a direct descendant of Jerry Seinfeld’s Unfrosted, WHICH I LOVED?? !!
8. if this makes a ton of money are we gonna see a string of “hyper-specific stories based on cartoon nostalgia”? Yosemite Sam is involved in a school shooting, Pepé le Pew gets accused of date rape? Or rape?
9. hey look now I wanna go back and watch the old cartoons now
10. but first I want credit for asking how is it possible that Wes Anderson hasn't already done this?
11. yes I once blamed Castro on Wile E. Coyote

 

Advice for Young People. I Have It.

I don't consider myself to be a man of great wisdom and I don't think anybody ever looks to me for advice but as I see all the young people in my life growing closer to adulthood there's one piece of advice I would like to pass on to them (this one, in particular, is almost exclusively for young gentlemen): if somebody says the word “duty”, be the one guy in the room who doesn’t laugh; you will immediately garner the respect of anybody else in the room who doesn’t aspire to be an obnoxious 6 year-old.

PREVIOUS ADVICE HERE

Steak Night with Marley & Watty! 🕺

Here's the playlist we put together of some of our favorite cover songs, 5 each.

Mine are:

They Don't Know
Left in the Dark
I Need Your Love
Police On My Back
Strange

And here's the playlist we put together for our favorite Beatles song (right now!), 5 each.

Mine are:

She Loves You
A Day in the Life
Rain
It's All Too Much
Hey Jude

A great night! 🤗🕺 

Wegmans You are Starting to Freak Me Out

I've blathered away a million times both on the pages of this blog and on my podcast XMAS YOUR ENTHUSIASM about how genuinely great the pizza at my Wegmans is - and I don’t mean "good for a grocery store" pizza, I mean "I lived in Brooklyn 15 years & sometimes their shit's a top 3-5 pizza of all-time for me" pizza - but today is the first time I've tried their thin crust AND OMG!!!! THIS IS ALSO A TOP 3-5 PIZZA OF ALL-TIME!! I mean LOOK at this thing below, are you kidding me?!!?!? And it tasted even better than it looks, I mean camon I just can’t anymore with this incredible Wegmans pizza stuff I mean I just can't.

Goals. I Have Them.

I'm gonna spend more time looking for opportunities to make "whoa whoa whoa...where's the gratitude?" my #1 catchphrase.

Will keep you posted!!

The Rhythm of Xmastime

To celebrate my 40,000th post (I will now pause to let the applause die down) I asked my bff ChatGPT to summarize the history of how prolific I've been at various points over the last 20 years, and since I have to pretend to care about you people I also had them whip up a snappy little infographic to make his answer easier to digest you're welcome!!!

A Surprising but Still Brilliant Note on THE OFFICE

Season Eight gets a lot of shit from people, which is understandable since we all love Michael Scott, but it really does have some legit great stuff in there if you look hard enough (heh heh heh) (also, don't forget my solution woulda been more Robert California and Nellie, but hey don’t mind lil' ol' me!).

ANYhoo, like anybody else I've always rolled my eyes at the whole Dwight-Takes-a-Team-Down-to-Florida plotline but I've surprised myself recently by starting to like it after all these years; it’s amazing how your tastes can change in perfect synchronicity with finding delight in episodes you’ve avoided for so long after finally getting momentarily burned out on the episodes that made you love the show in the first place and it’s in that moment I found myself asking myself, “is Special Project a sneaky great episode of The Office?” 

I just did a re-watch and here are my notes, unedited & untouched, just quick thoughts in real time because fuck yall I’m just too lazy, you’re still welcome very much.

Great cold open
Dwights if you make me head of sales one more time
Perrfectingschlaggg nice precursor to finale (look up German word)
Some really great Nate stuff as always
“It’s like the Nation of Islam down here”
Darryl’s (thankfully temporary!)broken heart :(
Kelly batted a thousand as per usual
“I’m the only person here who watches Burn Notice!”
Ryan’s me not me Kelly pitch is hilarious
Dwight’s facial expression work during the interviews are next level
Andy unwittingly insulting Erin was brutal
Dwight replying to reach name as Andy listed them to everybody as, again, next level
And his scream slam door was PERFECTLY timed
Nate coupons, “I’ll find you” awesome
Even tho we know it doesn’t mean anything in the end, Erin’s reveal that she’s not coming back ever was shocking in the moment
Beautiful all-time Dwight moment, when he realizes he likes this team. 🥲

OFAH podcast & ME!

THIS IS THE FIRST PODCAST about Only Fools in Horses I’ve ever really enjoyed/gotten hooked on, and I wonder if part of the reason is that one of the two hosts (British sisters - one now lives in Hong Kong & the other in America - who grew up with the show always a big part of their lives, like everybody else over there) pronounces "says" as if it rhymed with "haze", which I found myself doing the summer after 6th grade; for some reason I couldn’t stop myself from pronouncing it that way even as I heard myself about to say it. It drove Brothatime! bananas the entire time, which I’m not proud to admit now may have played a small part in its perseverance.

The Pistol

OFAH in the USA

I did okay on this British insults quiz but I was fucking amazed & thrilled to see my beloved Only Fools and Horses in The New York Times (or, as I call it, "The Times") for the first time since I discovered it 11 years ago!!! 🤗🇬🇧🕺❤️ 

 

Hear Here!

Moi Say Moi back in 2024, a culmination of years (decades?) discussing the subjecthere on Xmastime:

 

While Day 1 of an Xmastime Presidency will of course be devoted to making it legal for adults to order off the kiddie menu, my solemn promise to ALL Americans is that by the end of Day 2 it will only be legal to run a goddam leaf blower on Saturdays between 2-3pm. No exceptions.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand the rest of the Universe now starting to finally think about catching up:

The hottest tables in America are serving what suspiciously looks a lot like the kids menu — but with an adult price tag.

She describes a growing phenomenon she calls “new-stalgia” — a blending of old and new that pulls people back into that place of feeling connected to their youth and connected to the things that made them feel good.

There’s a biological component, too. Stress increases cortisol levels, which in turn drives cravings for quick, energy-dense foods — carbs, sugar, the kinds of things that dominate elementary school diets. 

In other words, the urge to order a plate of buttered noodles or a perfectly crisp chicken nugget isn’t childish. In many ways, it’s inevitable. Our bodies are searching for a chemical, emotional solution to the overwhelming sense of anxiety and dread that faces many adults of all ages in today’s world.

I'm calling bullshit on all that & I would say the truth is that chicken tenders and french fries & pizza just tastes better than most other foods, but hey whatever it takes to keep this movement going! 🤗🕺

Xmastime Bravely Calls BS on THE OFFICE

There's a flaw in the whole notion that Michael would promise the staff Monday & Friday off if they attended Jim & Pam’s wedding...IN NIAGARA FALLS, A FOUR-HOUR DRIVE FROM SCRANTON!!!! in that..........why exactly would any human being choose to drive 8 hours round-trip to spend a coupla hundred dollars attending an overnight weekend event with their co-workers over simply coming into the office and doing normal work in a presumably lower-stress office without Michael - and a non-infrequently used trope is that everybody gets more work when Michael’s not in the office anyway, so…...??

I understand we hafta swallow a lot of nonsense when watching a tv show but this is over the top, people.

@theoffice Thanks so much, Michael 😃 So kind of you 😃 #TheOffice #PamBeelsy #MichaelScott #Wedding ♬ Peacock_TheOffice_WeddingOrWork - The Office

Xmastime Films

A SPECIAL MOMENT FROM THE XMASTIME OUTTAKES REEL: Eddie and the Cruisers

Watch Previous Xmastime Films Here

Happy 50th!

Earlier I mentioned today being the 50th anniversary of the release of The Ramones debut album, and I won’t pretend to bother having anything original to say about what an effect it would have on my life; I will, however, point out that while I love my new 180-gram vinyl copy thanks to my recent vinyl refurbishment program, for today’s anniversary I'm rocking the copy my buddy Rylo got for me in New Orleans for Christmas 1991, back when these records were hard to find.

LONG LIVE THE RAMONES!!!

Post #40,000

Today your love, tomorrow the world.  

Xmastime Wants

I wanna see a 10-part Netflix series on The Wrecking Crew’s Leon Russell playing that pounding choppy runaway piano on Da Doo Ron Ron. It sounds like the piano comes in & out of the mix, was he playing that way throughout the entire song? We’ve spent 60+ years marveling at John Lennon’s rhythm guitar on All My Loving that came out just a few months later, yet I’ve never heard if its own staccato relentlessness was partly inspired by the piano on Da Doo Ron Ron? 🤔🎹🤷‍♂️

UPDATE: of course I asked my bff CHatGPT about the Lennon connection, you're very welcome:

Your instinct here is really sharp.

• “Da Doo Ron Ron”: released March 1963
• “All My Loving” by The Beatles: recorded July 1963

That timing absolutely allows for influence. John Lennon was famously plugged into American pop—especially girl groups and Spector productions.

Similarities

• Both parts are relentless, driving subdivisions
• Both create momentum by never letting the rhythm breathe
• Both sit slightly above the mix, giving a sense of urgency

Key difference

• Russell’s piano = percussive attack inside a dense wall
• Lennon’s guitar = clean, exposed motor, almost like a snare drum made of strings

So… did Lennon borrow the idea?

There’s no documented confirmation that he was thinking, “I’m copying that piano part.” But stylistically:

• The Beatles absolutely absorbed Spector/girl-group production ideas
• Lennon’s right hand on “All My Loving” feels like a translation of that percussive keyboard energy into guitar

A fair read is:

not a direct lift, but part of the same 1963 moment where rhythm instruments became engines, not just accompaniment 

50 Years Ago Today ❤️ 🎸