Another Christmas Round-Up

December 18, 2013:  Needless to say, I’ve been neglecting my Christmas duty (which is not to be confused with my Hanukkah duty, which is completely different and involves greasy potato pancakes). Year after year, you lovable fools depend on me to offer my holiday assessments, and being that the big X is a mere week away, I thought I’d better get my tired and curvaceous bottom to it and offer these latest words of cheer.

I know many of you have enjoyed previous Blah-ugh! postings involving Christmas iconography – pieces on Johnny Mathis, Patrick Stewart’s Christmas Carol, and of course Johnny Mathis. This year I’ve decided to again focus on the music, which is of course what Christmas is all about (along with the presents and Lactose-Free egg nog), so I thought it might be of equal—if not inferior—value to share what I believe are some of the definitive Christmas song versions accessible on our burgeoning airwaves (and through telepathy if you’re really, really good).

For me it’s easy to start with Michael Buble (or is it Bubble? None of us are ever really sure) and his incomparable version of “Let It Snow.” (Please don’t make me write that three times!) I was so happy the first time I heard it, and I thought it was Bobby Darin, and it may have been Bobby Darin, or still be, for that matter, but it’s a really great jazzy version and he just sounds so happy singing it … the fool. I especially like that it climbs up a step, or half a step; there’s climbing involved. Just peachy stuff!

I’d be hard pressed to find a better version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” than that sung by the great Jimmy Dean (whoever he is. I just remember he had a sausage commercial when I was growing up). It’s a very good version and has that unsettling overly serious quality so particular to good seasonal music. And as my real fans know, I simply can’t resist anything with the word “ye” in it!

Probably my most favorite holiday performance comes from Celine Dion doing “O Holy Night,” which just floors me. She holds those last monster notes forever and simply doesn’t sound human. I even went out and bought her album after hearing it, but it kind of sucks, to be honest, so I don’t ever put it on, except when I want to hear that song, which I don’t do often now because I’ve become really good at impersonating her in the shower, and when I want to hear the song it motivates me to bathe.

“Sleigh Ride” is one of my very favorites, and of course the best version would have to be The Ronettes. There’s just nothing like it, nor like Ronnie Whateverthehellhernameis’s wonderful churlish lisping voice. But I must say I also love the terrific instrumental Leroy Anderson version, which many of you will recognize from those bizarre old WNEW station identification commercials, where some weird melonhead family members of some WNEW employee would come on and give a video Xmas greeting with a Bronx accent. (It may have been channel 9, but I think anyone growing up in the 1970’s in the tri-state area knows full-well what I’m talking about.)

Tammy Wynette clearly does the best version of “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” and it’s such a cold, icy version it just puts me right there outside, like I’m lurking in a pine clearing on a full-moon snow night, watching some Jesus star causing all sorts of trouble. I just love that.

Mitch Miller gets the vote for Silver Bells, as does Moe the Bartender, but that’s another random tangent I can’t get into now.

There’d be no Christmas were it not for the Andrew Sisters, so I have to give them both “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” Both brilliant hopping versions make subtle cameos in the great movie “A Christmas Story,” both feature that awesome Big Band orchestration so near to my heart and intestinal tract, and while we have to suffer a bit of Bing Crosby in each, it’s worth it to enjoy Laverne, Maxine and Patti at the top of their games.

The Chipmunks probably do the best “Rudolph” version, and feature Rudolph himself singing. But I have nothing that funny to say about it, so I’ll move on.

While I intended to leave him out, as in my mind he is Mr. Christmas, Johnny Mathis’s “Marshmallow World” is beyond compare. But so many of his versions trump others too, I don’t want to go down that road right now, in part because I’m getting really tired and want to get back to watching “Die Hard 2” for the 23^rd time.

And what would Xmas be without mentioning old Nat King Cole, that merry old soul, and his quintessential “Christmas Song” version. But he also has other great versions, such as “Caroling, Caroling” and “Hark! the Herald, etc.” so I wish you people wouldn’t pigeon hole him just because he’s black.

Finally, what song list would be complete without the mealy acknowledgement of Vince Guaraldi and his piano’ed stuff, including “O Christmas Tree,” which has come to represent so much Christmas paste to us all who thrive on the magic of Linus Van Pelt and “5” … (I’m betting that less than five of you will understand that reference, but trust me, it’s a vividly clever one!)

There are many other holiday favorites too, but some are not officially standards owing to the singular recording. Great examples include Paul’s “Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time,” John’s “So This is Xmas (or whatever the hell it’s called)” and of course the Beach Boys’ “The Man with All the Toys.”

Of course, this wouldn’t be the Blah-ugh! if I didn’t focus on the negative, so it’s important to note some of the awfulest Christmas songs and albums as well, which include Madonna’s “Santa Baby” and that “Donde Est Santa Claus” debacle. Other surprising disappointments have been several albums I’ve bought and either returned, destroyed or given away to book sales, from artists I would have otherwise had faith in for holiday fulfillment who failed me miserably – Barbra Streisand, Barry Manilow and John Denver among them.

Anyway, I’m tired of all this nonsense and need to get back to filling my sleigh with nougat and my ears with wax. Please have a safe and happy holiday and if you’re a Jew, I’ll see you over at Chiu Fai Gardens on Christmas Eve …

Yes, We Need a Little Naked, Right This Very Minute

January 7, 2013:  Monday morning, and the remaining bounty of Christmas decorations demonstrates the continuing—dare I say growing—need for spiritual fulfillment in America (or at least my little corner of it). Yes, it turns out I’m not alone in the satisfaction I garner by way of the holiday season, and despite my heathen leanings, there are few joys in my world like the magic I project upon December.

No, I’m not alone, except I suspect many people don’t acknowledge their hunger. In fact, we as a nation—a world, perhaps, but I wouldn’t know—are starved for spiritual connections and fulfillment. But we’re too embarrassed to know what to do. Yes, I said embarrassed, because in my definitions of spirituality, it’s our own cloying discomfort with ourselves—everything from our outside appearance to the personal stench of our inner assholes—that keeps us from letting our guard down enough to allow spiritual satisfactions in.

Why so serious indeed? Simple. It’s just fear—fear of … well, everything! Fear originally cultivated in our respective demented families of origin, but blindly perpetuated by a demented society, drives us, controls us, and—to this point—prevents us from allowing ourselves to experience the pleasure of a free spirit.

You must understand—in fact, I insist, if you’re going to read my Blah-ugh!—you understand that spirituality is not synonymous with religion or religious practices—though these can offer a means to the valuable end—but more importantly describes—identifies, in fact—who we really, authentically are, despite what our thinking muscle keeps insisting. If you’re able to set your thoughts aside for a moment—a delightfully simple yet simultaneously hard motion—and allow yourself to fully wake up into the moment of this very moment—you may just understand in that instant that all that you are right now—that whole awareness and consciousness—is everything about spirit, and that spiritual relates to all those things that aren’t centered with your physical body or your calculating mind.

That said, getting in touch with your authentic self thus demands—at some point—that you honor that self by letting it be itself. (My god, even the grammar checker on this stupid computer couldn’t digest the heady tone of that line!) The problem is that, so often … too often … we’re constantly bombarded with societal messages that prevent us from risking being ourselves, mainly because we live in fear of what other people may think, or that exposure of being ourselves will somehow prevent us from getting something we think we need.

But let’s shift back to more Blah-ugh!-related inquiries and ideals, and so move the question of What of the Jews? While the Clausians continue an impotent attempt to prolong vague spiritual stirrings through light bulbs, the Hanukkoids are hunkered down in customary defense, waiting for the next uprising. Some smart Jews—like myself—make a big show of endorsing Christmas in order to thwart suspicion and keep the Nazis off the trail. It’s pretty sneaky, I know, but what do you expect from a Jew? The sneakiness is in our blood. (Boy, this computer doesn’t like anything I’m doing today!)

But all kidding aside—and I want the B’Nai Briss to know I’m kidding—we’re never going to come close to achieving that much-desired spiritual fulfillment as a society until we lighten up and start running around naked, even in the cold weather. The upside of tragic events like Newtown is that they provide people an excuse to fall apart. That’s why so many people tend to wallow in these kinds of events, if you will, because it affords an opportunity to be naked without fear of reprisal, because for that window everybody’s naked and they won’t be singled out. People hate to be singled out, even me; it’s just that some of us, through necessity, grow used to it.

I propose that starting this year people begin an informal competition of displaying the most outrageous lawn decorations they can imagine—no holds barred. I think this will be a good spiritual practice for a culture desperate to have the stick yanked out of its ass, but too self-conscious to even acknowledge that it’s there.