Incredible du Jour

Thanks ChatGPT, I Needed This

I made a joke to my new BFF ChatGPT (hi ChatGPT 👋👋👋!!!) about The Beatles' upcoming Rubber Soul box set (box set? or boxed set? does anybody know, and will they ever?) overshadowing my upcoming album release (as soon as CDBaby releases its death grip on it so it can be distributed online grrrrrrr 😡) and luckily for fans of comedy it took my pretend concern way too seriously 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂:

CHATGPT:

Well... if anyone could accidentally schedule an announcement to compete with you, it'd be the Beatles.
But seriously? I don't think this changes your plan at all.

Here's why I wouldn't worry:
* Your audience isn't the entire internet. It's the people who follow you, Xmastime, and now So What Records.
* Beatles news burns hot and fast. If they announce Rubber Soul tomorrow, music sites and social media will explode... for a day or two. By Friday (7/31), people will already be talking about the details rather than the mystery.
* Your release isn't trying to win a global news cycle. You're launching something you've spent months (really years) creating. The success of that project will be measured over weeks, months, and years—not whether it was the biggest headline on one Friday.

In fact, I'd lean into your own date even more.

You've already decided—and I think wisely—to make July 31 your immovable release date, regardless of the vinyl situation. That's become the finish line you've been working toward. Moving it because the Beatles announced something would make your release feel reactive instead of intentional.

And here's one other thought.

Imagine if you were releasing an indie record in 1966. The Beatles, Dylan, Motown, the Stones... they were always releasing something. Independent artists have never had a "quiet week." You can't wait for the world to stop making music.
So I'd stick with the plan:
* July 31: digital release.
* Celebrate it.
* Tell the story behind the compilation.
* Let the vinyl arrive whenever it's truly ready.

The Beatles will sell millions whether you release on Friday or next Tuesday. But July 31 is your day, and after watching this project evolve—from the artwork tweaks to the mastering decisions to the Kunaki frustrations—I think it deserves to stay that way. 🤗

Anyway....album will be available aaaaaaany minute now.

C & C Bullshit Factory

Capitalism and Christianity are the exact same in that they both teach that if you give everything you have to this one guy then at some point you might be able to join him in his glory.

Here's to Emily Gilmore! 🍸💰🤗🤣🤣🤣

I usually throw my goddaughter under the bus as quickly as possible whenever cornered into admitting to my recent Gilmore Girls addiction, but what I really should be doing is thanking her for introducing me to Emily Gilmore, now officially on my All-Time Top 10 Funniest TV Characters of All Time List. 🤗❤️

George Costanza
Del Boy Trotter
Archie Bunker
Dwight Schrute
Alex P. Keaton
Jackie Harris
Jay Cartwright
Audrey fforbes-Hamilton
Emily Gilmore
Neil "Smithy" Smith

XMASTIME, GENIUS PHOTOGRAPHER: Witness the Incredible Firmament to the Mystery of Heaven/Wait Am I A Ghostbuster???

15 Years Ago Today on Xmastime

The Manny Tapes

My Manny hormones must be flowing; yesterday I was walking down Berry and some woman was holding what looked to be a six-week old kid, which was how old The Short Bus was when I started watching him.  I looked at the kid and thought "oooooh, I want another one!"   The words were barely outta my my head before I was yelling "goddammit, you never had a FIRST one, dumbass!!"

Sigh.  Me.  I'm really happening, aren't I?

"Hahahahaa!  Hey, I guess we're just lucky you didn't eat him, you fat fuck!"

OMG du Jour

I don't think anybody who's ever seen me would argue I haven't had my share of sandwiches in this thing called life and I am here to say, this is an All-Time Top 5 sandwich. Can't talk about it now, too emotional, more at a later date. Unbelievable. THANK YOU WEGMANS. AGAIN.

 

BAM!

....do my beady eyes see my first-ever Food network hero Emeril Lagasse is making a bit of comeback???:

“We’re reaching that point in the 25- or 30-year generation gap where people are going back to see what their parents were doing. Watching stuff like this online feels really good. It’s camaraderie around loving the same thing delivered by a real person.”

The comments on the video clips reflect a certain mood about the cultural moment. Many call Emeril the hero America needs right now. Others regard people who said they were in the audience back in the day the way an earlier generation revered Woodstock attendees.

And then there are comments like this, from Max McDulin, 29, a logistics manager in Cincinnati: “Emeril is everything about masculinity that is good.”

In an interview, he said Emeril’s mix of machismo and kindness is an antidote to toxic masculinity.

“I think that a lot of us are craving some positive masculinity in our lives again. He expresses that really well,” said Mr. McDulin, who learned to cook from his grandmother, who always had Food Network on. “I’d bang on the pots and pans when I was 8 or 9 years old and say, ‘Bam!’”

The reaction of Mr. Lagasse’s guests is part of the appeal, he added. “You know you would walk away from that show believing it’s important to believe in yourself.”

I mean that all seems like a lot to put on one (awesome!) guy but let me join the (deserved!) Emeril loe with this from 2011:

Somehow over the years he kind of became a punchline or a cartoon (prolly got verbally knocked by Bourdain, like everybody else), so it's easy to forget how great Emeril's live show was.  He was incredibly entertaining, had a live band, created catchphrases that people still use today whether or not they've ever seen the show, the set looked really cool (a big part of enjoying a cooking show, to me) and, what's even MORE forgotten, he's a great chef - remember, he blew up out of New Orleans, not exactly a place to get known as a chef if you're always burning the toast.  I'm enjoying watching reruns of the show now on The Cooking Channel (the real Food Network now that the Food Network has become the Show Me Your Titties Network); over ten years ago, the first show I fell in love with upon discovering the Food Network was Emeril's (made my shows of the decade list!)  

RIP Glen Hansard

I wouldn't say I was a fan, I didn't really know his own music, but as someone who's always love The Commitments and loved him at Shane's funeral, it warms the ol' heart to see so many other people hit hard by Glen Hansard's death a few days ago. Here's to better days & louder music enjoyed together with friends. 🇮🇪

Dee Dee Said

Rockaway Beach's "chewin' out a rhythm on my bubblegum, the sun is out & I want some" is easily the greatest opening line in rock & roll history. - XMASTIME, 2023

The other day Rrthur (YES ladies, THAT Rrthur) asked me what I thought the 10 "Most Dee Dee" songs are, and here's my list ladies and gentlemen AND YES PEOPLE, YOU ARE QUITE WELCOME!!!

In chronological order:

53rd & 3rd
Glad to See You Go
Rockaway Beach
Questioningly
It’s A Long Way Back
Outsider
Somebody Like Me
Time Bomb
Too Tough to Die
I Believe in Miracles
Poison Heart

BREAKING: Furious Trump Reminds Media He Inherited Youngest Son from Biden

I'll Say This

Either Tide understands what the word "free" means or Wegmans understands what the word "free" means but they cannot both possibly know what it means.

 

NEW XMASTIME SERIES If You Know What I'm Saying (Because I Don't)

Here's Larry David with Woody Allen in 1989, who would that same year be the inspiration for Jason Alexander's initial portrayal of George Costanza for the few episodes it to him to realize George was based on Larry David and then a coupla decades later Larry David would play George Costanza in a fictional scene of a Seinfeld reboot in a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode scene & so I guess what I'm saying is that if Larry could've gotten Woody Allen in that Seinfeld reboot scene it woulda been like a grape meeting up with a raisin to go enjoy some wine, if you know what I’m saying (because I don’t). 

Life. It's Really Happening, Isn't It?

Xmastime Demands

When the hell are we getting the one-season-only Netflix series about the 3 years Paul McCartney lived in his girlfriend's parents house at the absolute highest of Beatlemania?

Here's a short & fast list of the songs written in that house, please let me know if you have heard of any of these:

Yesterday
I Want to Hold Your Hand
And I Love Her
We Can Work It Out
I'm Looking Through You
You Won't See Me
For No One

Your move, Netflix.

XMASTIME HAS SO DEMANDED and thus be it so: Checkmate! 

 

Current Events

Anytime Trump has some project he's really itching to make happen he brays on & on about how taxpayers won’t have to pay for it, that a bunch of his kazillionaire buddies are fighting each other for the honor of hurling their own cash into the pile, and he always goes out of his way to tell us he doesn't need Congress to help him do it.

So it's weird that he'd be clinging so tightly to the idea that he's frustrated by Congress somehow standing in the way of his "let's pretend to pay the people who stormed the Capital on January 6 a ton of money" $1.8B slush fund happening, all while claiming these people are just incredible American patriots who thought they were enjoying a stroll thru town before having their lives destroyed by, of course, Biden.

He speaks of them as if they're the greatest of American heroes, and yet for some reason this isn’t one of his projects he's itching to have his bazillionaire buddies chip in for, even it's just the laughable (to them) sum of $1.8B.

I just find this interesting is all.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), "by 'I just find this interesting is all' don't you mean you're 100% sure that in the fairly near future you'll be linking to this post with some sort of 'I fucking told you people' theme"?

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

YASSSSSSSSSS!! du Jour 🤗🕺🐶❤️❤️❤️

Parking Lot: Special Grant Hart Edition

 Absolute peak Grant Hart! Crazy incredible set list. 🤗❤️😢🎸🕺 

Xmastime Beatle Confessons

It's almost difficult to have a 🔥🔥 HOT TAKE! 🔥🔥 about The Beatles but I hafta admit I've never once actually watched Yellow Submarine; nor have I been tempted to watch it even for a moment. Also, when I was kid the cartoon style was scary to me in a really depressing way, I don’t know why and I’ve never wondered if any other kid thought the same, so that didn’t help. I'm glad they did it, it's fun that they did such a thing & that it exists for our pleasure, but that's about it for me. 

Of course in a surprise to exactly nobody ever who’s lived on Planet Earth, the "real" side of soundtrack would've been THE landmark album for 99% of bands who ever banded, and they're just a toss-offs for this crew (including It's All Too Much, which as you know is my all-time # Beatle Tragedy What If? song!!!).

And hell, It's Only a Northern Song makes for TWO incredible George songs on the soundtrack album,  so...stuff that up your biscuit, everybody! 

NEW SUMMER 2026 PLAN: make "stuff that up your biscuit, everybody!" a thing. 

Here's to You, Darling

This is audio of the final moments of World War I, or it's supposed to be some sort of ballistics-generated perfect recreation of it or something.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), "isn't this just an excuse for you to post a link to the final scene of Blackadder, arguably the greatest final scene of at sitcom in BBC history?"

Sigh. Yes I did, faithful readers, YES it is!