Keeping Hope Alive for 2025 🤗🕺❤️🕺🕺🕺🕺

MACCA!

Probably my last text of 2024 and oh look it's from Paul McCartney NO BIG DEAL to me. 🤷‍♂️ 🎸 ❤️

Really Thought He Meant The Show

Treat Yourself!

To the best live album I've ever heard, both in sound quality and set list, recorded 47 years ago tonight. 🤗🕺🎸🥁

2025

Trump was the 45th president and he's re-entering (eww) the presidency in the year 2025 and 45 x 45 = 2025 so oh great we're truly fucked now. Great.

Insta du Jour

I'll Say This.

We say we're in charge but I've spent the last 2 days running the water in the kitchen sink so I can veeeeeeeeery slowly open a pizza box without Scooter hearing it from three rooms away so now you tell me. 🤔🤷‍♂️

TFW When the Kid Who Was the Basis for a Character in your Book Lets You Know He's About to Read Your Book

Art, Life; Life, Art

If I had a nickel for every time at The Turkeys Nest Op or I finished threatening an ass-kicking with the words "involuntary and ignominious" then I'd have a lot of fucking nickels I tell you what buddy.  🤣🤣🤣🤣

Hey Look More Good News for Beatles Fans!

If you loved watching Get Back in 2021, this year may be even better for you:

In 2022 host of I Am The EggPod, Chris Shaw, invited a pot pourri of delicious guests to take a jaunty stroll through Peter Jacksons Get Back, day by day, everyday, on the day. 21 guests over 22 Days in January shedding light on each day from these incredible sessions.

In 2025 the days match to 1969. Day by day, everyday, on the day the podcasts will be played in the gallery with a new creative response about the day being added on the day, everyday. From the 2 January an empty gallery will be slowly filled until the climax of a roof top gig on Thursday 30 January.

I remember listening to the daily podcasts when they came out and they were awesome, so I'm super-pumped about this and you should be too! 🎸 🥁 🕺 🤗 ❤️ OH YEAH AND OF COURSE CHECK OUT MY LIVE BLOGS FOR ALL 3 EPISODES OF GET BACK STARTING HERE!!

 

Line du Jour

The bit about the cheese at the end is what puts it over the top. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 #blackadder 

Of Course...

...God was nowhere to be found when it began, I’m guessing? 🤔🤷‍♂️

The Hidden Coolness That Is Jimmy Carter

Oh by the way when another civilization eventually finds the Voyager spacecraft a million years from now guess whose letter they're gonna be reading.

In 1980 they were presented as "cool Hollywood cowboy" and "weak Sunday School dork" and now Ronald Reagan has become ground zero for delivering us Donald Trump and Carter is probably the most interesting president as a human being since Thomas Jefferson, except we were all convinced to toss him aside into the dustbin of history by Saint Ronny Trump 1.0 🤔🤷‍♂️

"Wait But I Thought Jimmy Carter Was a Dork?"

Why is This News?

Was....was anybody picturing Flav's tombstone WITHOUT a clock???

Jimmy Carter

There's weird paradoxes to the life & legacy of Jimmy Carter - while in the US Navy he was literally lowered into a nuclear reactor to prevent a meltdown yet was successfully painted as a weakling by a Hollywood actor and was THE true Christian president of our lifetime yet not only know of Southern rock bands like the Allman Brothers but was friends with them (to say nothing of the fact that after 100 years he died with America under the rule of the least-Christian person even a godless hack like I can imagine), just two examples - but then you see something like fun this and your mind just goes mind 😮🤯.

Is This Finally the End of Civilization?

👎👎👎👎 to McDonald's for not keeping the CHICKEN BIG MAC on the menu!!! 😡😡 Boo! Hiss! 😡 😡

"Rufus"?

Trying a bit much, to be "cool" here, Amazon?

There is only one Rufus in my life and spoiler alert Amazon, you are not him.

Current Events

Really looking forward to seeing Trump supporters share their opinions on Jimmy Carter’s Christianity today.

State du Moi

After 52 years of this thing we call life I'm only now noticing that when I'm in bed no matter how big the bed is I'm always as close to the edge as I can be without literally falling off. 🤔🤷‍♂️

Excerpt

"Don't mind me while I just get fatter," she joked.
"Don't say that."
"Why?" she laughed, "you do it all the time, you-"
"I don't want anyone to ever feel like I do."

RIP Jimmy Carter

From all accounts, he appeared to be one of the alltime-best people we were all lucky enough to be alive for.

Interesting Note on the Current Elon Musk/MAGA Fiasco

Without elections to worry about Trump anymore can finally exact revenge on MAGA for becoming his brand since nobody hates them & is as repulsed by them more than him; as they line up begging him to keep treating them like the suckers they are he won't bother pretending to care anymore.

2024

One of my favorite moments out of the entire year was when Steve Jones dropped this incredible performance of Roxy Music's More Than This. 😢 🥲

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by $teve Jone$ (@jonesysjukebox)

G.E. Smith is a Treasure

The G.E. Smith interviews are intoxicating to watch - his days playing with Dylan are as bonkers as you'd expect - and I'm sure I've posted this one of him talking about when The Replacements were on Saturday Night Live before but after years & years of revisiting hours of these interviews it’s only now occurred to me to wonder how in the ever-loving hell did Bill Hader never do an impression of this on Saturday Night Live? 🤔🤷‍♂️

New Brilliant Sketch Comedy Idea, You're Welcome

 

UPDATE: I went to the party, her friends found me to be perfectly delightful, and the subject of my toenails came up two, maybe three times at the most. #OTD2014

Something You People Should Know About Me.

I never felt like a real grownup until I legit had a really good junk drawer going.

Current Events 🤮🤮🤮🤮

I have no idea what's gonna happen with the whole "oh sure let's let Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy run things" except that whatever is gonna happen is gonna be fucking terrible for anybody who's not a billionaire so can we just skip ahead already to them scraping every last dollar out of the system they can until there's nothing left except an absolute disaster of a mess that a Democrat will hafta be the adult in the room and clean up while being blamed for it happening in the first place before we start the whole thing all over again once there's money back in the honeypot?

Thoughts. I Have Them So You Don't Have To.

It's well-known as a fact - and by "well-known as a fact" of course I mean "I think I saw Neil deGrasse Tyson say it in an Instagram reel" - that in about 5 billion years the Sun will expand and reduce the Earth to cinders, and it's just popped into my head that at some point, just like at some point in the past someone was literally the first-ever human to be born, someone will literally be the last human ever to die (and to steal from Woody Allen, not in actual words but rather in tone, why not let it be me?).

Apollo Theater and, Remarkably, Buddy Holly

The Apollo Theater turned 90 years old this week and unfortunately for everybody involved it turns out I am the whitest person in the history of Earth since the second I heard this little tidbit of information the first thing I thought of was Buddy Holly playing there, as told below by the delectable Jackée. I knew about them being the first white act to play there, but I didn't know they dedicated an entire night to him in 1992.

PS - watch the Apollo Theater scene from The Buddy Holly Story HERE - the story's slightly different/condensed of course but gets the point across.

And the Bells Were Ringing Out

Really great inside baseball on the making of Fairytale of New York, the most Christmas of Irish songs and the most Irish of Christmas songs. Also really great to see Steve Lillywhite get some love for his humongous contribution.

 

Oh Well du Jour

There are countless things to scream at your screen about on the subject of the tragic miss that was Vinyl but one of the biggest for me was I just never bought that Bobby Cannvale's character really loved music. 🤔 🤷‍♂️

The Best Medicine

My goddaughter's been sick over the last few days 😢 but don't worry, Godfather of the Century Dr. Feelgood Xmastime, M.D. delivered the goods the best way he can: old video of her punching her little brother in the stomach. Enjoy! 😜 🕺 🤣

Dear Uber That Looked Rather Suspiciously Like an Old DC Cab

Why put the "5" on the middle of this row; based on how we've all been doing star ratings since Judas gave The Last Supper 0 stars (“this place is a sausage party magnet for assholes”) it looks like a "3".

I remain,
XMASTIME

Yeah Whatever Buddy...

... you may see "heartwarming family photo" but since apparently your damn eyeballs are broke & mine aren't I see "here's John Lennon teaching his family how to put on blackface, we need to cancel this motherfucker NOW".

Get it together Diario dos Beatles dammit!

I'll Say This.

The biggest testament we have to the idea that most women don’t care about penis size is that they don’t blab as much as you’d think about celebrities; you'd think we'd know exactly how big every rock star/actor/athlete is by the hundreds of women bragging about sleeping with them but they don't seem to really do that as much as you'd think and the reason probably is they don't really think about it as much as we like to think they do. 🤔🤷‍♂️

My Texts While Watching GLADIATOR II

Was not expecting. 1. So much Denzil 2. So much Denzil BEING Denzil.

I kept waiting to see Ethan Hawke across the table about to cry. I’m surprised he didn’t drop his "King Kong ain't got nothing on me!" line in Latin.

Also way more sass than you’d think slaves would have with their masters but I love Dee from WHATS HAPPENING?? so I ate it up. 

I wouldn’t ask you motherfuckers to pick up my mail without 9 confirmation emails and then this fucker’s like “hey doctor here’s a super vague message to bring to some army somewhere to we can start a war or not” and the doctor is like “got it”/cut to message fully received. 👍

“He likes sand.” “So does every toddler ever born on Earth.” “Therefore Rome is his now.” “Makes sense👍.”

Oh yeah and these two fucked each other:

And yet came out with:

Surely they had gladiators that faked it with each other right? “Oooh we both twisted our ankles!”
“Grrrr! SO furious!! Damn this ankle, your majesty - one week, you know imma be furious if I’m not back in the arena in a week! Two at the latest! Stupid ankle!”

10,000 slaves whose families were murdered and Denzil finds the one who (checks notes) has rage in him. Wow. Thank you Denzil Washington, Gladiator Wizard.

Gladiator guy in movie: “I will not rest until I’ve roamed the earth so I can find my wife’s murderer and exact revenge, no matter if it takes until the end of time and my last breath in this life!” “Or how about if we bring you right to him while training you to be a great murderer?” “Even better.”

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), "doesn't that create what would be a rather surprising link between the incredibly violence-for-violence's sake Gladiator II and the delightfully wholesome children's' cartoon, The Wonder Pets?"

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

And as "wonder"-ful as these guys are, they seem to get lucky a lot. A typical scene is the one we just saw: they're in their wonder-mobile, flying over Greece to find an injured inchworm and help him. To whit:

"Wow, Greece is huge! How are we EVER gonna find the worm??!!"
"There it is!"
"Great!"

Well Well Well

Looks like Republicans really did win The War on Christmas.

In a Fucking Heartbeat

Cheers to Costco

Costco is pushing back on ending their DEI policies:

Costco is battling an anti-DEI wave with a stern rebuke to activist shareholders looking to end the warehouse retailer’s diversity ambitions.

Walmart, John Deere, Tractor Supply and other companies are changing or walking away from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies. But Costco believes DEI helps its “treasure hunt” shopping atmosphere, and it is standing behind its efforts.

Costco’s board of directors unanimously recommended that its shareholders vote against a proposal brought by a conservative think tank, the National Center for Public Policy Research, that would require Costco to evaluate and issue a report on the financial risks of maintaining its diversity and inclusion goals.

Kudos to them for not succumbing to the “oh now that Trumps back we can just be fucking assholes” bullshit!!

Brilliant du Jour

Let’s Make a Deal

If you get to enjoy making fun of me for being a fat disgusting piece of shit then you have to shut the fuck up when me being a fat disgusting piece of shit is why nobody sits next to me on a packed train. 

Xmastime Sitcom Worlds Colliding! 🤗❤️🇬🇧 #gavinandstaceyfinale

Been There.

I'll Say This.

I like Oasis fine, I'm not a real fan but I like the same big hits as everybody else, but there's no guitar player I’ve ever seen whom I’d least like to play like than Noel Gallagher.

Xmastime So Sayeth, So Sayeth Xamstime

2024 will always be remembered as the year I realized I was an old man because I started thinking "hey you know what The Long and Winding Road is a pretty good song". 😬 😭 😭😭

Garfield du Jour

PS - he was right!!

Christmas Gift to Myself from Last Christmas (I Gave You My Heart Dammit)

ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES Christmas Episode d'Année

THICKER THAN WATER 12/25/1983

The final scene when Del Boy slips his father some money before kicking him out again is gut-wrenching. The only one with Del & Rodney’s father, who shows up for the first time after walking out on them decades earlier. Del’s cynicism about him being a changed man and Rodney’s optimism makes perfect sense. Ironically, Reg’s scam was to convince Del Boy he wasn’t his son…when we’d later find out the truth is that Rodney wasn’t. - XMASTIME

One More Thing!

I mean I love the sentiment of this but WHY👏 THE👏 FUCK👏 WOULD👏 YOU👏 HAVE👏 A👏 RICKENBACKER👏 GUITAR👏 INSTEAD👏 OF👏 A👏 FENDER👏 PRECISION👏 BASS👏 WHICH👏 IS👏 FUCKING👏 10000%👏 WHAT'S👏 IN👏 THE👏 ACTUAL👏 PHOTO👏 AND👏 IS👏 JUST👏 AS👏 FUCKING👏 EASY👏 TO👏 DRAW👏 AS👏 THE👏 GUITAR👏????

Goals. I Have Them.

Write a song about the post-Christmas blues called CHRISTMAS MORNING COMING DOWN.

Surely...

....someone's already done a version of this for Christmas with toys enviously watching kids play with the boxes they came in?

Xmastime So Sayeth, So Sayeth Xmastime

Hey look, sometimes it's about putting in the work.

I'll Say This.

This movie should be called Hope You Fucking Like Musical Montages.

Thankl You, The Internet

Someone posted a small Marah live catalog on YouTube; it's not exhaustive by any means but it's broken into chronological years by section across the years in a super-cool "oh this was what seeing Marah in (insert year here) sounded like and I am loving it and think you will too. There's 5 videos in all so start here and enjoy!

An Xmastime Prayer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to blow minds today by matter-of-factly mentioning that of course the actual title of the song is "Run Rudolph Run" and not "Run Run Rudolph", idiots.

State du Moi

I was gonna make a pretty shitty "even John Lennon had to deal with motherfuckers kicking his seat on the plane" joke but now all I can see is somehow he looks as if he and Ringo had a baby together & this is what it grew up to look like and I can't get off that so 🤷‍♂️.

Current Events

I love how everybody thinks that after almost 80 years of having an unlimited supply of money & resources now is the time Trump's gonna finally have a good idea.

In the Year 2025

The thing about the year 2025 is that as well as the usual end of the year BEST OF 2025 lists we'll be pummeled with BEST OF THE QUARTER CENTURY lists too, great.

Questions. I Have Them.

The updated default image for the new Mac Sonoma OS is nice and all but why is there an ongoing wildfire going on in the background?

Hey, Whaddya Know

I guess Republicans' fantisies about the president being from Africa finally came true.

More Christmas Movie Ideas. I Have Them.

HOME ALONE 6: KEVIN JUST FUCKING CALLS THE GODDAM COPS LIKE A NORMAL FUCKING PERSON

Christmas Movie Ideas. I Have Them.

It's a Wonderful Life, but from Potter's side. I mean the mfer was in a wheelchair, can't we at least hear his side of the story?

LOOKING FOR INVESTORS!! (with Potter-esque $crillah!!!!) 💰💰💰💰

OK They Got Me DAMMIT I AM NOT MADE OUT OF STONE, PEOPLE!!

This little dog always invites one of his stuffed friends to share his meal.

pic.twitter.com/Ts5dpKKDXk

— The Red (@WomaninRedx) December 23, 2024

15 Years Ago Today on Xmastime

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Soaps

The thing I don't understand about soap operas is that all of a sudden, after decades and decades of being on every day, they're dropping like flies because of "costs." Which, from what I can ascertain, includes a video camera from 1988 and the interior of a Foot Locker with wood paneling. Fuck it, why don't they just start the goddam thing over again, let 'em run from, say, June 30 1952 (first viewing of Guiding Light) and run again each day as if in real time? Hell, woudn't people get a kick out of the fads and fashions anyways?

When Even the Christmas Decorations Want You to Know How Much They Hate You

In America.

We also have a "refuse to be governed by people we deem to be smarter than ourselves" thing going on which is really great too, so.

Xmastime So Sayeth, So Sayeth Xmastime

Say hello to next year's big Hallmark Channel Christmas movie, everybody.

First They Stole Our Packages, and Then Our Hearts!

Gothamist really wants us to be concerned with 74,000 Amazon packages in NYC being stolen since 2019 which is kinda ridiculous since there's really no number between "none of them" and "all of them" I really woulda batted an eye at but the real reason I'm writing this is the Amazon supersleuths over at Gothamist need to try & crack this cold case. Grrrrrr.

Broken Clock Scenario

RFK Jr is a psychopath creep who doesn't belong anywhere near the levers of power but of course Trump is even 1000x more of a psychopath so w'ere pretty fucked but Kennedy is 100% right about the fact that fucking pharma ads should be banned. Of course we know this isn't gonna happen because everybody makes way too much money:

The push against TV drug ads threatens to dent the revenues of pharmaceutical companies, which can make back in sales five times as much as they spend on commercials, according to some analysts. It could also create uncertainty for major television networks, which bring in substantial revenue from pharmaceutical advertisers trying to reach older viewers, who tend to take more medications.

And of course this is bullshit since....aren't hard liquor & smoking ads banned? We can do that but not the same for pharma?

I'm guessing one of the myriad reasons for this is that unlike the others, the very premise of seeing a doctor has been flipped to the point that doctors really ARE our drug dealers since now we've been trained to specifically ASK them for a medication we saw in a tv ad. Which is fucked up for many reasons, the most recent of which is now RFK Jr. starts sounding like the reasonable voice in the room, which is terrifying.

No Big Whoop

My train at Union Station got delayed so I decided to take a bus down to Richmond; standing there forever in my area was a young family and at some point the dad just walked across the parking lot, pulling his suitcase behind him while his kid yelled "daddy" over & over; 20 minutes later the bus pulled up and we all got on, and from what I can tell the father never returned. Didn't hear a peep on the bus for two hours ten minutes.

Xmastime Worlds Colliding

Just a coulpa weeks ago I mentioned how much I loved this guy Danny Lewis' art, and for years now I've been a big fan of the guy inserting Paddington Bear into movie/tv scenes, so you can imagine how thrilled I was just now to see a Danny Lewis painting...with Paddington Bear???

I have no idea if this was intentional, if he knows about the Paddington Guy, but they do work perfectly together so 🤔🤷‍♂️?

Questions. I Have Them.

Since we're stuck with him anyway can we at least get Elon Musk to pay Ken Burns $1B to make a 10-hour documentary on The Christmas Wars?

RIP Rickey Henderson

He's kind of become a modern-day Yogi Berra in that the (pretty incredible, if I'm being honest) stuff he said may have started to overshadow the fact that he wasn't just a great player but an all-time great player. 😢

Meanwhile, some dude we all need to thank put together a Twitter thread of some of Rickey Henderson’s craziest stats; since I pretend to care about you people, I will now choose my favorite 3:

STATE DU MOI: Keeping Hope Alive

 

People are Weird

This is a very nice story, and one you're glad people are sharing since everybody seems to agree that everybody absolute loved Slim, and I don't wanna be a dick during such a sincere moment, but am I an asshole for wondering well...NObody took a photo of Slim when he showed up? Or they did, and this person still thought what we really wanted to see was a photo of folks without Slim?

This'd be like if when I met Springsteen me & Dave & Op & Ed took a picture of ourselves without in it....? 🤷‍♂️

Insta du Jour

Manhattan Snow Storm 1947

My 2024 Spotify Wrapped!

According to Spotify, the song I listened to the most this year was a demo that The Beatles didn't even bother actually recording to be released. Though I was worked up about it a few months ago, so I guess I shouldn't be too surprised.

ENJOY, and YOU'RE WELCOME EVERYBODY! 🕺

Xmastime So Sayeth, So Sayeth Xmastime

If there's a Sitcom Character Hall of Fame and Mr. Haney isn't in it then you need to burn that building down and start over because you're doing it 100% exactly wrong, idiots.

My Thoughts are "Fuck This Asshole" Well Okay I Guess It's Just the One Then

What are your thoughts on this?pic.twitter.com/WaUSFgSA4p

— aka (@akafacehots) December 21, 2024

False Advertising.

These things are room temperature at best. 😡

YYYYAAAASSSSSSSSS THE NEW YORKER!!! 🤗🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Sometimes I think that as a people we take for granted just how incredible the phrase "roll over Beethoven" itself is.