Poets! Poets! Not Poets!

I, for one, had no idea she was hot as balls. Gotdam - if you can have a hair bun and still be hot, that's fucking impressive. - XMASTIME

She's no poet per se, but I've wantwd to bang Virginia Woolf for some time now. Unlike, of course, the unfortunate-looking Edith Wharton.

And don't forget: she's on Downton Abbey this series!! (sorry, "season", for you fucking rubes.)

Anyhoo, here's the latest round of Dead Poets I'd Like to Fuck.

But of course, she is no Camille Claudel. Sigh. Dead Mrs. Xmastime Hall of Fame.

Because It's Been More Than 10 Minutes Since I Posted About Bruce Springsteen, aka Marley Bait

Dancing in the Dark in any form is an amazing song, but it's long been derided for being a caricature of the day's synch-pop whatever. So here's a clip of him playing it stripped down, at some school benefit in 1986 while hiding out after the massive Born in the USA tour.

Springsteen & I

"You meet somebody and it's like an open well. In ten minutes I'll know more about him than his mother and father do, maybe his best friend. All the things it usually takes for people to know each other just go away, because there's this feeling that it's so fleeting. They tell you the thing that's most important to them right away. It's just a real raw, emotional thing; it's like the cleanest thing you ever felt. You have a communication, a feeling, and I don't know, you just gotta love the guy. If you don't there's something the matter with you.

And it ain't some starry-eyed thing, and it ain't some Hollywood thing, and it ain't some celebrity thing. This guy, he loves you, and what's more, he knows you in a certain way. That's the thing that makes me strong. I get strong when I meet somebody like that."

Springsteen & I is a documentary that needs to explain why it exists, but I thought of this when I saw the great scene when the kid tells Bruce's he's been dumped, and Bruce gives him a hug. And he fucking means it.

The Manny Tapes

There was a kind of beauty in watching parallel play from about three feet above - it was like watching the world's shortest synchronized swimming team practice on land.  The children would almost crash into each other at any moment, but never did.  They all seemed to have eyes on every point of their heads, and swivels on their feet.   “Oooooh, here we go!” I’d giddily cheer to myself as two kids hurtled obliviously into each other’s flight path, “this one might get some blood! Definitely a nice, long crying jag!”  (While watching Chuck cry was both heartbreaking and embarrassing, there was a certain satisfaction in watching any other kid cry.)   But at the last possible moment a shoulder would dip or a spin would occur, and disaster was avoided with neither child even remotely aware of how close he or she had come to disaster.

The best example was my favorite kid in class other than Chuck, an impossibly cute toddler named Stan.  He was the very definition of roly-poly, with a pile of curly white hair on top of his head, and the second we hit the gym after arts and crafts he’d start running without stopping for the entire thirty minutes.  No slide, no kickballs, no hula hoops for Stan: just sprinting from one end of the gym to the other, thank you very much.  The best part was he never looked where the hell he was going - he’d peel off down the floor with his round head bent all the way back, face to the ceiling and eyes closed like Snoopy dancing the “Snoopy Dance,” but running in a crowded gymnasium instead of harmlessly dancing in place.  Incredibly, he never plowed into another kid, and it wasn’t as if they were dodging him or were even aware of him, since they were in their usual hazy fogs of oblivion as he careened around the gym like a lunatic.  He never tripped over any of the dozens of balls bouncing or hula hoops laying about, he never ran into the big sliding board in the middle of the gym or, what I’d really been hoping for, the wall.  Disappointing, yet amazing to watch as it unfolded.  I became more obsessed with each class, insistent that “this will be the day, dammit!” that his round, curly head would run smack into the concrete wall.  Watching a group of kids in parallel play was a lot like watching puppies in the front window of a pet store, but without the interaction.

Youth. Wasted on the Fat.

Watching the American Experience episode on War of the Worlds, I was shocked to realize Orson Welles was only 23 when he directed it. Unbelievable.

Then again, by the time I was 23 I had gotten laid in a Dairy Queen bathroom, so...your move, Mr. Welles.

Xmastime Shoutout du Jour

An old friend of mine from NYC is in the Atlantic on what government can and should learn from hacker culture:

What’s preventing reform? The answer starts with the government’s hierarchical structure—though an information-is-power mentality and “need to know” Cold War-era culture contribute too. To improve the practice of information sharing, government needs to change the structure of information sharing. Specifically, it needs to flatten the hierarchy.

I have no idea what the article says because I'm an idiot, but it seems very impressive to me and should be passed along.

I also have fond memories of babysitting her kids a few times. For one, they had the best couch I've ever sat in. I don't know what it was - it was big, maybe lumpy in spots but springy in others, but it was a great couch. Unfortunately they didn't have cable so if you sat on the couch you had to actually pay attention to the kids, so. Both kids were very sweet & entertaining - I can still remember looking down at the little girl after walking through 8 blocks of NYC to the playground amidst crazy traffic noise and genuinely asking "oh my god - have you been talking this whole time?!?"

:)

Worlds Colliding

Op refuses to watch Key & Peele after all these years no matter how many times I've tried to sell him on it, but I feel like after my 7 million posts on Les Miserables I hafta share this with you all. Fucking killer. Favorite: "this all has to happen on the same block?"

The Beatles Fucking Rock, Eff You

Somehwere along the line it became fashionable to assume The Beatles sucked live. And based on some bootlegs where they play for 20 minutes and you can't hear a thing, it's not a hard sell. Especially since they couldn't hear themselves any more than anyone else could, thanks to the antiquated amps/sound systems they were playing against the thousands of hysterically screaming fans.

But of course,even a non-Beatles fan who's read Malcom Gladwell knows that The Beatles had spent years in Hamburg etc playing 8 hours at a time, honing their chops. So thanks to them playing on a radio show in front of only 100 fans, we can hear them rocking live like they were perfectly capable of, in what one guy calls the greatest Beatles performance of all time:

With their last club residency in Hamburg’s boozed-up Reeperbahn district less than a year in the past, the Beatles were still one kickass bar band: adrenaline junkies with something punkish about them, though that punk vibe was shot through with rhythm and blues. But unlike when the band played Hamburg, now they had their own formidable compositions to perform...The four guys sound thrilled, maybe over the fact that for once hardly anyone is screaming back at them.

Witticisms du Jour

The Fresh Prince!  More HERE.

Oh Hell, You Knew This Was Coming

Dave Pirner, whose backups were so amazing they completely fucked up Lou Reed.

What's Up with All the Old People?

A few weeks ago HERE I mentioned how unwatchable the new Ricky Gervais show is. It's about a dude working in an old folks' home.

Now I see HBO has another show about fucking geriatrics, Getting On.

What the fuck? What's the sudden interest in watching shows about old people trying to get through The Price is Right without soiling themselves?

On a side note, my college girlfriend majored in whatever it is you major in to spend your life wiping old people's asses (for money.) She loved the fuckers. And of course since she was beautiful, unbelievably sweet and worshiped the ground I walked on, I had to dump her. So.

A Few Random Thoughts on Lou Reed

1. The first Velvet Underground record is not only the best debut album ever, but certainly the most fully-formed. Boom, here we are, this is us. I've always wondered if this was partly due to the fact that they were older than most "young" bands at the time. Reed was 25, Cale even older.

2. I Love You Suzanne is woefully overlooked. And it reminds me of '65 Love Affair, one of my oddly-hometown songs.

3. I don't wanna be pissing in the Cheerios here, but in all the books I've read about Lou Reed not once did anyone say anything other about his personality other than he was a complete asshole.

4. Is it even possible to be more New York than Lou Reed?

5. Maybe the most interesting thing about him is that when the final VU album came out he was working for his dad's accounting firm as a typist.

6. He's the single-greatest example of a dude who had grown up in sheltered suburbia demanding to see the darkest part of everything, including NYC.

7. From what I can tell, I'm the only person who ever lived in New York City for more than 30 seconds who didn't run into him on the street.

8. I'm pretty sure that the first time I heard Waiting for the Man as a 15 year-old I had no idea what the hell it was about. Even though I'd already heard Heroin.

9. Is REM covering Pale Blue Eyes, There She Goes Again and Femme Fatale the only example of one great band covering another great band and trumping them with each of their own versions of three already great songs?

10. Someone once told me the story of going to a Lou Reed record signing with a Lou Rawls record and asking him to sign it. He thought Lou would get a kick out of the "mistake." He did not.

11. The four just flat-out coolest motherfuckers ever hafta be Reed/Dylan/Lennon/Strummer. And only one's left. And he birthed us The Wallflowers. Which ain't cool.

12. I remember excitedly getting Magic and Loss. Don't think I ever made it through it.

13. But if I had a nickel for every time I listened to the first VU or New York, I'd be a dozenaire.

14. One of the reasons I liked Marah, the first new band in like 100 years I liked, was that they talked about the New York album and covered the fuck outta I Can't Stand It.


15. I remember passionately quoting him that "Rock & roll is so great, people should start dying for it" during one of the first times I hung out with a woman who I'd fallen hopelessly in love with. And believing it.

16. Of course now I feel like an idiot for doing so, but that's the beauty of youth. And rock & roll.

17. Lou would go on to make the world's greatest mix tape, given to that very girl. Congrats, Lou!

18. He had that same cool thing Lennon/Strummer/Dylan have in that even though you know 90% of what they're saying in any interview is complete bullshit made up to amuse themselves, but you still hang on every word.

Xmastimemania!!!

50 years ago this month, the term Beatlemania was coined:

The real scene was outside the concert, where “more than 1,000 screaming teenagers” kept the Beatles locked up in a “day-long siege,” as the Mirror described it. As the Beatles figured out how to make an exit, fans fought to break through “a cordon of more than 60 police officers.” The Mirror’s account was no more sensational than the others. According to the Daily Herald, “screaming girls launched themselves against the police—sending helmets flying and constables reeling.” Presenter Val Parnell, for his part, told the Beatles that afternoon, “I am not risking letting you out. It could be dangerous.”

Laffs du Jour

Famous brands updated with honest taglines. This may be my favorite:

RIP Lou Reed

The Velvet Underground's first record is without a doubt the best debut album in rock history. But I'm still blown away by how great New York was, coming out 22 years later in 1989.

The Whitest Video Ever?

The clothes. The dudes. The music itself. The dance "moves."

On a side note, it would almost be worth getting another girlfriend (“But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “you just had one 16 years ago!!") just to break up to this song, making it THE GREATEST BREAKUP OF ALLLLLLLLLLLLL TIME:

After her twin sister cleans up and leaves, gf tells me that's it, she doesn't wanna see me anymore. Sitting on the couch, stunned, the silence is broken by the sound of my voice, barely above a whisper:

Those times I waited for you seem so long ago

"What?" she asks, confused.

I wanted you far too much to ever let you go.

"Are you...are you saying something? What the hell?"

(Now slowly rising up, voice rising with me, still staring into her eyes, unblinking.)

You know you never got by "I feel it too", And I guess I never could stand to lose

"Wha - what the fuck are you doing?"

It's such a pity to say

Goodbye to you (left arm pointing straight at her, head bopping)
Goodbye to you (right arm out now)

"You're creeping me the fuck out, what the hell-"

(Now I'm floating and spinning in front of her, just like Patti Smyth in the video)

Could I have loved someone like the one I see in you

"Please, stop!  Stop it!"

I remember the good times baby now, and the bad times too  (shaking a "no no!" finger in her face)

"Well, I...I mean, I..."

These last few weeks of holding on, The days are dull, the nights are long 
(She can only stare open-mouthed now)

Guess it's better to say
(double knee slide right in front of her, really belting it out now)
Goodbye to you
Goodbye to you

(The next minute will be tough, nothing really happens in the song, but by then she is openly weeping, and has, upon seeing my performance, decided she's still in love with me and DOESN'T wanna break up.)

Now, could I have loved someone like the one I see in you
Yeah, I remember the good times baby now, and the bad times too

(Now she's joined me on the floor, on her knees, sobbing while holding onto my legs, begging me not to go, that we're in love forever)

These last few weeks of holding on
(I lightly take her head and pull her up to me)
The days are dull, the nights are long
(Tenderly lay a kiss on her cheek)
Guess it's better to say 

(long pause)

(still pausing)

Goodbye to you
(Pull out a piece of chocolate cake that was in my pocket and oh-so-sloooooooooowly smush it into her face, smearing it all over while she looks aghast)

Goodbye to you

(I walk out)

THE GREATEST BREAKUP OF ALLLLLLLLLLLLL TIME!!!!!!!! 

Portrait of the Artist as a Manny

I took a casual look around the room, as cool as could be, but didn’t see Josalyn.  What the fuck?

“Where is she?”  I asked Chuck.

As if he fucking knew.  It’s hard to spin your head around the room looking for someone and still look cool, but I was pretty sure I pulled it off as I looked for Josalyn.

Great.  The one time I decided to throw down the gauntlet and actually try to (well, sort of) ask a woman out on a date, she didn’t show up.  Of course.

I don’t have ESP.  But I do assume that every woman in the world has ESP, at least when it comes to dealing with me.  How many times had I seen a girl’s guts clench up like she was about to be hit with atomic diarrhea when she saw me walking up to her, praying she’d suddenly blend into the woodwork so I wouldn’t see her and would walk right on by without asking her out?  Every single time I’d approached a woman, of course.  But a woman who barely even knew me somehow sensing that I was interested in asking her out before she’d even entered the building, therein knowing to stay the fuck away?  That was a truly impressive woman.  I quietly doffed the proverbial cap to Josalyn for this, it was as if she…oh, shit, there she was.  Fuck.

I Have No Idea Why

...they're celebrating Michael Jackson at Ohio State, but this is pretty fucking awesome.

Books by State

Here's the most famous book set in every state.

You know i loves me some Bridge to Terabithea, so I was pleased to see it representing my home state of Virginia.

Happy Birfday...

...Watty!!!

Enjoy a treasure trove of Watty on Xmastime HERE.

80s Who Gives a Shit

I recently came under the spell of my old bandmate The Dish, who questioned if the Police or The Cars were the better band. I seriously considered the Cars to contend until I saw this list of slices:
-->

The Police slices

So Lonely

Cant Stand Losing You

Truth Hits Everybody

Message in a Bottle

Don't Stand So Close to Me

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

Synchronicity II

Every Breath You Take

King of Pain

The Cars slices

Just What I Needed

Let’s Go

Since You’re Gone

Tonight She Comes

Nobody hates Sting more than me, but hey. Hippies win. So Lonely is a desert island slice of slices of slices of slices.

Memories

Here's a giant panoramic video of Williamsburg & Greenpoint:

French photographer Delphine Monnier walked down Bedford Ave, Manhattan Ave, and Franklin St. photographing every building along the way. The project was inspired by Edward Ruscha’s 1966 Every Building on the Sunset Strip.

On Proust (heh heh heh)

While Justice Antonin Scalia reads I Believe in the Devil and Other Stupid Shit by Justice Antonin Scalia, here's Justice Stephen Breyer on reading Proust:

It’s all there in Proust—all mankind! Not only all the different character types, but also every emotion, every imaginable situation. Proust is a universal author: he can touch anyone, for different reasons; each of us can find some piece of himself in Proust, at different ages. For instance, the narrator of the Recherche is obsessed with the Duchesse de Guermantes. To him, Oriane embodies a slice of the history of France and glows like a stained-glass window, wreathed in the aura of her aristocratic lineage. Now, however different the situations may be, we have all of us—in our childhood, our adolescence, or later in life—admired from afar someone who has dazzled us for this reason or that. And when we read Proust, we get a glimpse of ourselves. In fact, I think that the only human emotion he never explored—because he never experienced it himself—was that of becoming a father.

What is most extraordinary about Proust is his ability to capture the subtlest nuances of human emotions, the slightest variations of the mind and the soul. To me, Proust is the Shakespeare of the inner world.

You know I loves me some A lá Recherche de Temps Perdu - oh I'm sorry, Remembrance of Things Past to you fucking bumpkins; besides possibly being the first classic to point out the glory of the mullet, Proust of course was a great influence on my favorite author Eric Kraft.

Jesus Was Not a Republican

GOD: And do you really think Jesus, if I did send him back, would hang out with YOU guys?

W: I had Dick make some bumper stickers: "Jesus Loves Me – Just ask Him, He’s Right Here!"

GOD: You didn’t notice that in the Bible, Jesus tended to hang out with the poor, the diseased, the outcasts?

W: Well, in the beginning, sure. I just assumed that buy the end, he was rich and cool, running things, right? I mean, look who HIS dad is!

GOD: You…didn’t read the whole thing?

W: Dude.

GOD: Riiiight… - XMASTIME

Sully points out the obvious:

But does our most gracious Lord deserve to have his name associated with concealed weapons and stand-your-ground laws, things that fly in the face of his teaching and example? Does he say anywhere that we exist primarily to drive an economy and flourish in it? He says precisely the opposite.

With His Bobcat Badge in Hand, Paddy Mac Starts Working On His Shitfaced Badge

Reason to Be Sad du Jour

Social media wasn't really around for George W. Bush's presidency.

Gotdam. Pretty sure the pure memeage (Trademark!) would've broken the internet.

2. Think of all the memes that could have been!

I sure posted a lot about him; here's a random post with him:

I love how now they list Bush’s vacation as a "working vacation." Isn’t that pathetic? He’s such a fucking loser, no-count president that he has to insist "seriously guys, I’m gonna be working! Camon, I mean it! I’ll keep the fax turned on, I swear!!" cause he knows we’re all rolling our eyes at what a fucking goof-off he is. Christ. Wonder what The Decider will come up during this Brush Clearing Season. Hey, maybe as he’s clearing brush and "mulling things over", he can get another visit from God, like when God told him to invade Iraq?

GOD: Hey, uh…George, it’s me.

W: Whoa! The brush is talking to me!! It's a Christmas Rapture Miracle!! I KNEW the Jews were wrong!! Hello, Brush!!

GOD: George it’s me. God. In heaven.

W: Mr. Reagan? Oh my gosh, it’s you! Why, I-

GOD: It’s me, dumbass!! God!! G-O-D!!

W: oooohh, yeah. Hey!

GOD: Listen, could you stop running around saying that I told you to invade the Middle East? You’re embarrassing me.

W: But…but you did!! You said "G-Rock, you need to invade Iraq and spread democracy throughout the Middle East!" By the way, G-Rock is the nickname you gave me. Hey, did you know our names both start with the letter "G"? wow!

GOD: Okay, first of all, I never gave you a nickname. Period.

W: Sure you did. G-rock!

GOD: No. I didn’t. You know how I know this?

W: Did…did God tell you?

GOD: Because I’ve never spoken to you!!

W: Sure you did. I was clearing a bunch of brush and you spoke to me. And you said that I was doing the work of Jesus, and he’d come back and join our fight against the gays. And New Yorkers.

GOD: Why on earth would I tell you to invade the region that includes the Holy Land, and then turn it into a democracy like yours, a government which was built upon the very idea of not including, you know, ME? Why would I recommend that, of all things?

W: Just like the Bible said, and I quote: "Were I whence I be, when I whence to came, glory to all upon where were I whence."

GOD: And do you really think Jesus, if I did send him back, would hang out with YOU guys?

W: I had Dick make some bumper stickers: "Jesus Loves Me – Just ask Him, He’s Right Here!"

GOD: You didn’t notice that in the Bible, Jesus tended to hang out with the poor, the diseased, the outcasts?

W: Well, in the beginning, sure. I just assumed that buy the end, he was rich and cool, running things, right? I mean, look who HIS dad is!

GOD: You…didn’t read the whole thing?

W: Dude.

GOD: Riiiight…listen, anyways, like I said. Please stop telling people I’m behind this mess, okay?

W: Can I tell people you came up with the Dubai Port deal?

GOD: You’re not a smart man, George.

W: No. No I’m not

GOD: But you do keep things interesting.

W: Hey, can you tell which one is Mary-Kate and which one is Ashley?

GOD: Goodbye, George

W: You mean "G-Rock"!

GOD: And quit praying for "Weekend at Bernies III." Ain’t gonna happen.

W: G-Rock!

GOD: Bye

And of course, there are times he is truly missed:

Watching Obama right now reminds me what the best thing about George W. Bush as president was: putting him in front of a live camera. Right? He was like whenever Eric Dickerson got the ball handed to him, there's no WAY you're tearing your eyes from the screen, cause you know at any second he's gonna go all the way - mangle words in ways you didn't think possible, then light off a string of "what the fuck is he saying?" sentences before trying to make a joke that feels like someone cut one in church. Seriously, if Bush had become the first president to drop the n-word on live tv during a presser, can you honestly say you'd be S H O C K E D? He made blithering oblivion fun to watch. And it was FUN. Oh, everything he said was absolute bullshit, but you also know that if you took 60 seconds to walk to the fridge in back there was at least a small chance that you'd find him onscreen doing shadow puppets, having said "aw, fuck it" with a broken bottle of Mad Dog 20/20 over his own head.

Sigh. We miss ya, Dubyanuts.

Awesome du Jour

Short Distance Dedication from Obama to Ted Cruz

Boone!

Today was the 10th anniversary of Aaron Boone's historic shot off Tim Wakefield to win the 2003 ALCS. I remember I had been out at The Nest watching the game and was "resting my eyes" when, for some reason, the lady I was in love with at the time nudged me awake, and seconds later I witnessed the homer. Which is kinda funny since yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Kirk Gibson's dinger of Eckersley, and Brothatime!! and I had just walked in the door from some party (up at Johnny Minor's presumably), turned on the tv and the first pitch we saw went off Gibson's bat and outta the park.

To me though, his greatest contribution to baseball will always be providing the zinger of 2009:

 Chip Caray: "Can you believe Aaron Boone is returning from open-heart surgery before Jose Reyes is from a hamstring injury?"

As I said back then: ha!

Off course Boone getting hurt playing pickup basketball that offseason was the reason the Yankees got A-Rod. Who knows how history may have been changed - was Yankee history changed more by Boone's dinger or his getting hurt?

I'm Banksy, Dammit!

I think I'm gonna announce to the world that I'm Banksy. Fuck it - he won't, so I might as well.  If he doesn't wanna be rich and famous, I don't see why I can't do it for him. Sure they'll figure it out eventually, but think of all the tail I'll get til then. BOOM!  - XMASTIME

My time for doing this may be running out, as they might have lifted his veil finally.

Ted Cruz, the Gift That Keeps On Giving

While Obama has always been great at rope-a-dope, he's sometimes lifted his foot off the gas (mixed metaphor much?) (always alliterating?) a bit early. So of course it took a true blizzard of buffoonery like Ted Cruz and his fellow Tea Partiers to make Obama say fuck it and wait them out until they'd truly worked themselves into a stupor of futility. Ezra Klein writes that if Cruz didn't exist, the Democrats would hafta invent him:

Going forward, not only will Republicans be afraid to shut down the government or threaten the debt ceiling again during this Congress, but if Republicans somehow end up doing it anyway, Democrats will be unafraid of the fight. As Democrats see it, if Republicans want to give a shutdown or a default another shot closer to the 2014 election, well, that's great news for Democratic congressional candidates.

Over the last 24 hours I've seen some Republicans complaining that President Obama and the Democrats are trying to break them. Their anger is misplaced. They should be angry at Ted Cruz for putting Republicans in a position to be broken.

Of course the Tea Party represents a lot of people who refuse to accept losing the Civil War almost 150 years ago, so I doubt they're gonna learn too much from this episode anytime soon.

And Ted, now that this whole thing might finally be behind us, I'd like to offer you the next slot in that most hallowed of stupid politician's dreams: The GOP Batshit Olympics. Good luck. Though from what I can tell so far, you won't need it.

NY Jets Fired Up for Rivalry Its Opponent Doesn't Know Exists

How to Be an Asshole Online

People need to be more nebulously worried with their Facebook updates. "Gee, I dunno..." or "hope I get through this..." with no explanations are fine, but are they really dramatic enough to make your friends worry about you and needlessly set off chains of emails/texts "oh no!  Is Dippy okay!?!?!?"  I'll be more impressed when I see a few "on the ledge...I mean it, a real ledge of a real building..." or "I just took 100 pills!" updates out there. "I am about to release a king cobra into this locked phone booth" would be at least entertaining.  - XMASTIME

"The Cryptic Cliffhanger" is merely one of 7 Ways To Be Insufferable on Facebook.

On a side note, I am in the final stages of developing Facedbook - only the shitfaced can write stuff, all pictures are from drunken, death-escaping benders. In other words, a lot of titties & toilet bowls.

The Vitter Rulez

A last-chance salvo by the GOP to try to squeak out a tiny win in a huge war they created for reasons they themselves no longer are able to explain seems to be The Vitter Rule, which is impressively enticing to Republicans because it only puts the hurt on people who are dumb enough to sacrifice lucrative private sector careers to work for Congressmen, over half of whose sole purpose for being appears to be destroying the very industry (public service) these people have entered. That is plays to the idea of "cutting spending" makes these people very happy; to think it only affects the poorest amongst any group surely makes them absolutely orgasmic.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “how is David Vitter still in Congress, didn't he get in trouble a few years ago for having a healthy diet for prostitutes, despite being Mr. Family Values?"

Hey, dumbass - know your history. After all, Vitter not only ASKED God for forgiveness, but RECEIVED it:

You see that? He asked for AND RECEIVED forgiveness from God. Hmm. Really? He knows for fact that God forgave him? Can somebody please ask him how? Did God text him? I mean, did he really just say that? How can he say that and nobody asks him how this happened? And can I use this in court maybe? “Listen, your honor, I already talked to God and he forgave me for stealing the car, so you might as well let me go.” I guess him saying this horseshit makes it okay. Am I crazy, am I the only person on Earth thinking it's a bit much to believe that "God" reached out and spoke to this dipshit? A bum on the street talking to Jesus is "crazy", but we're alright with Vitter having God on his speed dial.Get the fuck outta here  with that shit already.

What the Fuck Is It With Cal Ripken's Mom?

First she was kidnapped last year, and now had to fend off (heh heh heh) a car-jacking? Wtf?

(Anyone else thinking one thing: Costner?)

"For the hundredth time, I'm not paying for a bodyguard, you fucking deadbeat."

 

And They Make Fun of Me Because of My iPhone 3

Flippity-flip!

Where Sunlight Streams

It Is the Wisdom of the Crowd That Matters

Ta-Nehisi Coates sums up the absurdity of bringing a confederate flag to show how much you love America in the most eloquent way I've seen so far:

But the Confederate flag does not merely carry the stain of slavery, of "useful killing," but the stain of attempting to end the Union itself. You cannot possibly wave that flag and honestly claim any sincere understanding of your country. It is not possible.

Speaking of Kam Sing

The bigger picture of this kind of theme to me is that all of this allows us to be easily led into being okay with something like torture.  As long as we're the ones doing the torturing, we cannot conceive it could come back to be used against us; if it did, suddenly we'd find it out of bounds, of course.- XMASTIME

As Robert Kennedy once pointed out about "The Golden Rule": 

The golden rule is not sentimentality, but the deepest practical wisdom. 

I don't want us to torture other countries' people because ta-DA!...I don't want them torturing ME if the opportunity presents itself. Sometimes the cycle of selfishness works.

Unfortunately for us, the previous administration was far, far too selfless in setting the torture precedent, and now we see that ta-DA! the Chinese are pointing out such patriotic selflessness.

Great.

You Can't Go Home Again (OMG I Just Made That Up!!!!)

Never one for thinking too much, I settled in…I popped my beer, slid down into the couch as far as I could and locked eyes on the screen. The only thing I had to really think about was what time I should call Kam Sing, how long I could hold off – 7:00? 8:00? 9:30 would be a record. Egg Foo Young? Yes. Load up on some brown gravy, be drowsy as fuck and then fall asleep – too old to rub one out to “Sex and the City,” too young to die. My life. - XMASTIME

I took a stroll through my old neighborhood today. First I get sad cause I miss it, then I get sad because there's a million faces I don't recognize that were probably 5 years old when I moved there. I went quickly from OHMYGOD so much has changed! to has it really, only since you've been gone? to oh who gives a shit.

As you already know, I do miss the thousands of books for sale that line Bedford Avenue on sunny days. Not shitty books either - basically, any classic is yours for only a coupla bucks, as long as you can find it.

Ah yes: 2500 square feet of fancy gentleman hats to choose from. I believe I speak for all mankind looking to drop $300 for dad's used hat to prop up a business paying $30k in rent when I ask: what took so long?

Moi ici:

The first time I ever visited Brooklyn in 1992, I bought a Troggs record at Ear Wax (now in a different location...did it used to be where Main Drag used to be?...?)

Turns out the same trustafarians that have come to hate gentrification in the few years since they got here also hate actually paying for the the music they claim helped inspire them to move to a "scene" like Williamsburg, so of course Ear Wax Records is gone. Hello, Pink. Or Pinky. I can't even fucking look.

I'm happy to report that King's pharmacy has (so far) survived the onslaught of Duane Reades in the area, including one directly across the street, although when I popped my head in the door I couldn't tell if they still played all 80's music, or just shitty music.

Lemme tell you what has NOT changed a single iota: 100 Metropolitan. That's right, motherscratchers. Cockraches and this mercury-filled asbestos-laced building that probably cut my life span in half are what will survive a nuclear war, my friends.

I did hear a rumor that TOPPS is closing after all these years, perhaps confirmed by the sign below. Throughout my years TOPPS went from a place one could choose to by 5 lbs of "meat" for 99¢ to a place that didn't even bother listing its prices because TOPPS because if you had to ask, you couldn't afford it to, of course, my favorite bagger ever: Corey. Also, I will miss the spot where the single most confusing exchange since Who's On First occurred. Sadly, I never did get to live out my Fresh Direct dream.

Finally, all you faithful readers know that I've mentioned my go-to "Chinese" "restaurant" KAM SING about 70,000 times on this "blog", so imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Looks like there is officially nothing for me to go back to.

(Xmastime on leaving Williamsburg HERE.)

And Yes, I Know I'm Going to Hell

I know this is supposed to be a heartwarming tearjerker, but is anyone else creeped out/horrified re: what it looks like this guy is doing?

Another Astronaut Dies

First Neil Armstrong a year ago, and now Scott Carpenter has died:

Carpenter was one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts chosen by NASA, which said he died from complications after a stroke. He was a backup pilot for John Glenn ahead of America's first manned orbital space flight in February 1962.

Carpenter flew the second American manned orbital flight in May of that year. Flight time was four hours and 54 minutes, according to a NASA biography.

John Glenn's now the sole survivor of the Mercury astronauts.

Highest of all Carpenter's great feats was of course appearing in Peanuts.

Another Happy Birthday

John Lennon!

The band took the stage, most of them wearing black. Springsteen went to the mike. "If it wasn't for John Lennon," he said, "a lot of us would be in some place much different tonight. It's a hard world that makes you live with a lot of things that are unlivable. And it's hard to come out here and play tonight, but there's nothing else to do."

I've seen people digging firebreaks to save their homes, and I've seen some desperate fist fights, and God knows, I've seen hundreds of rock & roll shows, but I have never seen a human being exert himself the way Springsteen did that night in Philly.

Happy Birthday

One small memory I've always kept for some reason, even if it was only a small moment, was one afternoon after Sunday dinner. I might've been oh, 10 or 11. I was doing the dishes by myself, the kitchen empty except for my mother sitting at the kitchen table, just relaxing looking out the window that was in front of me over the sink. I'm scrubbing dishes etc, neither of us is saying anything. I quietly start humming something, just kinda bopping my head ba-dum-bum-bum-bum-ba-dum-bum-bum-bum, just kinda bebopping for no reason. This shortly changed from humming to to pshaw-ing out loud the same rhythm with my lips, I had forgotten my mother was sitting there and was getting noisier. Then from outta the water in the sink I happened to pick up some brush, shaped like a paintbrush, as for putting a glaze on a barbecue I guess. I'm bebopping out loud, bopping my head, rinsing the brush off and without breaking rhythm all of a sudden thrust the brush to the window and give it a few slaps, as if I was painting on a large canvas, my slaps with the brush accompanied by even louder scatting A BOW-BOW-BOW! All of a sudden I hear my mother behind me cracking up, I turn around and she's laughing her head off. "Oh god, Greg," she laughed, "you're too funny." Looking back I don't know if it was that funny, and it's a tiny moment in just any ordinary day, but I'll always remember it.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Sometimes I think I should bring up my getting 650 on my math SAT in conversation more than I already do.  I mean, let's at least get it out there, right?

Thoughts, Barely, by Xmastime

I can't explain it, but there's something about the Miley Cyrus song that makes me think of The Real World: Miami from 1996.


Hey, what can I say - I'm a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, wrapping in some juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust too-tight dungarees.

Thousands Are Sailing

Until today, I hadn't realized that Phil Chevron wrote my third-favorite Pogues song. Geez. And there I was, making fun earlier.

Prove My Love

There's a case to be made that the first Violent Femmes record was not only the most influential record of 1983, but of all the 1980s. Maybe. Certainly, no record that sold so little has ever become so well-known to such a high perentage of Earthlings, n'est-pas? And I don't mean in the VU/Ramones vein, wherein nobody bought their debut records but those that did started their on bands - EVERYBODY on Earth knows these songs.

Someone's About To Have Their Balls Chopped Off.

Modern Family. Why?

The Office did a great job of circling back in the end and reminding us that the whole reason that they were being filmed, by showing the PBS commercial and having the cast in front of an audience et al, was for a workplace documentary.

In watching Modern Family for the first time in a few years, I can't help (while loving it, mind you) but wonder why the hell are these people being filmed? Is it really to show the "modern" type of family? They never address it, even in the pilot episode.

Anyway, here's a photo of one of the actors from the show I've randomly selected.

And the List of People Shane MacGowan Outlives Inexplicably Keeps Growing.

Questions: I Have Them.

During the "good night" segment at the end of each Waltons episode, everybody speaks with their normal speaking voice. It's not like they were yelling at the top of their lungs across the house. So how were Ma and Pa Walton ever able to do it since everyone's beds were in earshot of them?

Oh, Snap!

Xmastime buddy Neil deGrasse Tyson is calling bullshit on a lot of the biggest movie hit of the week, Gravity.

80's Movies

I've seen 15 of these. Here they are:
1
2
7
8
11
12
13
14
16
18
19
20
21
23
24
25

Xmastime So Sayeth

Anyone who makes a disparaging mark about “the cool kids” or “the cool kids table” desperately wants to be a cool kid at the cool kids table.

Surprise du Jour

Doris Day is still alive. How 'bout that.

Les Miserables

The death of Gavroche in the movie is shocking because, let's be honest, you just love the little shit. But then when you read his death scene in the book, you love him even more:

He crawled flat on his belly, galloped on all fours, took his basket in his teeth, twisted, glided, undulated, wound from one dead body to another, and emptied the cartridge-box or cartouche as a monkey opens a nut.
They did not dare to shout to him to return from the barricade, which was quite near, for fear of attracting attention to him.
On one body, that of a corporal, he found a powder-flask.
"For thirst," said he, putting it in his pocket.
By dint of advancing, he reached a point where the fog of the fusillade became transparent. So that the sharpshooters of the line ranged on the outlook behind their paving-stone dike and the sharpshooters of the banlieue massed at the corner of the street suddenly pointed out to each other something moving through the smoke.
At the moment when Gavroche was relieving a sergeant, who was lying near a stone door-post, of his cartridges, a bullet struck the body.
"Fichtre!" ejaculated Gavroche. "They are killing my dead men for me."
A second bullet struck a spark from the pavement beside him.-- A third overturned his basket.
Gavroche looked and saw that this came from the men of the banlieue.
He sprang to his feet, stood erect, with his hair flying in the wind, his hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the National Guardsmen who were firing, and sang:

      "On est laid a Nanterre,       "Men are ugly at Nanterre,
       C'est la faute a Voltaire;     'Tis the  fault of Voltaire;
       Et bete a Palaiseau,           And dull at Palaiseau,
       C'est la faute a Rousseau."    'Tis the fault of Rousseau."

Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing towards the fusillade, set about plundering another cartridge-box. There a fourth bullet missed him, again. Gavroche sang:

       "Je ne suis pas notaire,      "I am not a notary,
        C'est la faute a Voltaire;    'Tis the fault of Voltaire;
        Je suis un petit oiseau,      I'm a little bird,
        C'est la faute a Rousseau."   'Tis the fault of Rousseau."

A fifth bullet only succeeded in drawing from him a third couplet.

       "Joie est mon caractere,      "Joy is my character,
        C'est la faute a Voltaire;    'Tis the fault of Voltaire;
        Misere est mon trousseau,     Misery is my trousseau,
        C'est la faute a Rousseau."   'Tis the fault of Rousseau."

Thus it went on for some time.
It was a charming and terrible sight. Gavroche, though shot at, was teasing the fusillade. He had the air of being greatly diverted. It was the sparrow pecking at the sportsmen. To each discharge he retorted with a couplet. They aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The National Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim at him. He lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in the corner of a doorway, then made a bound, disappeared, re-appeared, scampered away, returned, replied to the grape-shot with his thumb at his nose, and, all the while, went on pillaging the cartouches, emptying the cartridge-boxes, and filling his basket. The insurgents, panting with anxiety, followed him with their eyes. The barricade trembled; he sang. He was not a child, he was not a man; he was a strange gamin-fairy. He might have been called the invulnerable dwarf of the fray. The bullets flew after him, he was more nimble than they. He played a fearful game of hide and seek with death; every time that the flat-nosed face of the spectre approached, the urchin administered to it a fillip.
One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than the rest, finally struck the will-o'-the-wisp of a child. Gavroche was seen to stagger, then he sank to the earth. The whole barricade gave vent to a cry; but there was something of Antaeus in that pygmy; for the gamin to touch the pavement is the same as for the giant to touch the earth; Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he remained in a sitting posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised both arms in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot had come, and began to sing:

      "Je suis tombe par terre,     "I have fallen to the earth,
       C'est la faute a Voltaire;    'Tis the fault of Voltaire;
       Le nez dans le ruisseau,      With my nose in the gutter,
       C'est la faute a . . . "      'Tis the fault of . . . "

He did not finish. A second bullet from the same marksman stopped him short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement, and moved no more. This grand little soul had taken its flight.

Quote du Jour

There is no backward flow of ideas any more than of rivers.

But those who do not want the future should think it over. In saying no to progress, it is not the future that they condemn, but themselves. They are giving themselves a melancholy disease; they are inoculating themselves with the past. There is only one way of refusing tomorrow, and that is to die.

Well. This Is Somewhat Amazing.

Hand-written pages from Great Expectations:

CBGB OMFUG

CBGB the movie is about to be released. I don't wanna be skeptical, but when you make a movie about CB's and can't get the rights to use a Ramones songin the soundtrack I shall remain, should we say, "curious."

Jim Farber at the Daily News writes that overall the movie's fine, but gets some needlessly-wrong details wrong:

Even so, the ahistorical gaffes in the flick have to irk the informed. The film shows Patti Smith performing “Because the Night” at least three years before it was written. It has the Police auditioning for Kristal, after they’d already been signed to a major-label contract on a different continent. And it presents a duet between Blondie and Iggy Pop that never took place.

To me, the most egregious:

More puzzlingly, the space itself isn’t properly configured. It’s depicted as a wider expanse than it was, and it lacks the long railing that separated the bar from the seating area.

At least with the previous mistakes, you can make the case that it simply makes for better drama. But not having that rail? There's thousands of people alive who were there. There's MILLIONS of photos. And yet, no long railing. Wtf?

Having grown up worshiping the place as a punk rock Mecca, ie where The Ramones began, of course I was thrilled to play at CB's back in 1999. It didn't matter to me that oh, approximately 9,000 bands played there every night. A few things I remember from that night:

1. Earlier in the day, the booker had called to ask what time we wanted to sound-check. This being the first time a band of my status (ie, slightly above a loaf of bread)(okay I'm lying, no higher than a loaf of bread) had even been afforded the luxury of one, I replied "Do we have to?", which seemed to startle the person on the other end.

2. The sound, it turns out, was fantastic. Far better than anything I'd experienced before or since. Of course, we had just played a show the previous week throughout which I never realized I hadn't turned my amp on, so.

3. During our set I started seeing a flash going off from the back. "Ohmygod," I thought, someone's taking our pictures!" This was 1999 of course, before iPhones, and I was pretty sure that the handful of friends I'd bribed/blackmailed/nagged/guilted into coming didn't bring cameras. I couldn't believe it, we were rocking so hard that total strangers were taking our pictures!!

4. It turned out to be my friends Rylo and The Gnat, who'd driven all the way up from Virginia to surprise me, knowing what playing at CBGB meant to myself, and them. As bummed as I was that it wasn't a new fan, I was even more thrilled by what they'd done.

5. After blowing the roof off of the place with what, if I'm being honest, was probably the single greatest set in club history, I was dragging my amp offstage when my roommate Larry, somewhat known for having a rather casual relationship with the concept of time, came walking up to fistbump me, asking "you ready to rock, dude?" To which I replied "dude, we just got done rocking. 7:30 means 7:30, bro."

6. We actually got PAID. $20. This was just before things went to "if you bring in 100 fans who each spend $300 on beer then yeah, you can play here" throughout the city. I can remember clear as a bell going there the next day, and the lady reached under the cash register and handed the $20 to me, clipped to a Xerox of that night's lineup. Of course I still have that copy. I can remember the next band practice when I ceremoniously handed everybody their $5 (I think Keith laughed it off and let me have his: thanks, K-Rot!), and I made some joke about "hoo boy, now it's gonna be all about lawyers and accountants, people!!"