Oblig. Xmas Music Post

Drifter in the Snow

You're the Laziest Man on Mars

I'm just not feeling Christmas this year. The economy is in the crapper, ain't got no money, it's like 70 degrees outside and I'm just in an all-around poopy mood. However, I soldier on 'cuz that's how I do what...

.....

Technical difficulties


Well, this was unexpected. About 15 minutes ago, I was informed by my daughter that my dog Pepper, a charming mix of Beagle and Steve McQueen, took an unplanned furlough from the backyard. We went to catch her and I have to say for a dog as tubby as she is, she's REALLY fast. I caught her, told H. to hold her collar while I ducked back under the barbwire fence that surrounds the property I had just trespassed upon aaaand she let her go. She took off, my lungs which have been ravaged by at least a decade of cigarette smoke said, "Fuck that noise" and we turned around and came home, sans our beloved fat little escape artist. So she's still on the lam and I'm Googling prices on Commit Lozenges.

But I started this post with the intent of finishing it and by gum, that's what I'm gonna do.

Where was I? Oh, Christmas. Yeah, it sucks this year, I'm over it, whatevs-doesn't matter. What matters is that I'm still in love with the IDEA of the holidays, even if I'm not expecting much out of them this year. But ask not what the holidays can do for you, ask what you can do for the holidays. Kennedy said that, I believe. He was probably drunk at a Christmas party or something, but I'd bet cash money that he did say it at some point-he was a stitch, that JFK.

You know what else is a stitch (and I'm sure we all see what I did there)? Mystery Science Theater 3000. I was poking around in my blog archives and I noticed that this is my third Christmas with this blog and I've never, ever posted this episode. I don't know why, because I love it like it was my own little child. Pia Zadora is in the featured movie and Joel and the Bots perform a song entitled "Lets Have a Patrick Swayze Christmas". Not to end on a down note, but that song is one of the reasons I'm posting this now. I don't reckon the Swayz' will be around next December, sadly and it just doesn't seem right posting a song like that when the subject...Well, you know.

Enough melancholy. Enjoy "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" and if you don't watch the whole movie, at least stick around for the kicky theme song, "Hooray for Santy Claus". It's a fun tune and sure to diminish any holiday ennui. I should listen to it myself.

AFTER I hunt down that fat little beast.

Dude, That's My Kitchen

Before I get goin' on this post, I'd like to not-so-randomly point out that standing by the side of one of only 2 main highways in a town, waiting to cross at 7:50am when it's 28 degrees outside and sleeting...Yeah, it's probably not the most economical use of time. And yes I did just do that. AND I have a cold-that should be worth some bonus points.

Enn-E-How..

This is how much of a slacker I am: I meant to post this thing last Christmas and I'm just getting around to it now. Sad! What it is, see, is this dude uploaded the pages from a bunch of Sears Wishbooks from the 70s and 80s onto Flickr. Now, if you're of a certain age and economic bracket like myself, Sears WAS Christmas when you were a kid. And if you're even more like me than that (there's a bracing notion to consider), as a child, you'd snatch that catalog up upon its arrival, grab a pen and commence to circling all the great and dangerous toys you wanted (I really had that kitchen. It was metal and pointy and painful when physically introduced to the body. None of this rounded, plastic crap for the kids of the 70s and 80s.) I've noticed Harper does the same thing when the flimsy-in-comparison Etoys catalog shows up at the house. Makes me all misty eyed.

Now, this guy has uploaded several years worth of Wishbooks and there's a lot of pages. Personally I'm partial to the 1979 and 1985 sets, but YMMV. To add a fun element to this, see if you can find the World's Tackiest Naked Lady Oil Lamp somewhere in there. My uncle gave that to my grandmother for Christmas back in the day and us grandkids would make her turn it on every time we came over. My grandmother hated that lamp and if it weren't for the chillun, I don't think that naked lady would have ever seen any action...

Well that didn't come out right. Bah, I'm leavin' it.

Flickr, Flickr Here you are...

Of Maude and Midichlorian

Before I start, let me say that I promise this will be my last Christmas related post. This year.

Onward we go.

I've taken a break from my normal Christmas Eve routine of cleaning and watching cartoons to bring you a video. My intentions were to post the MST3k version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, but they only had it on YouTube and it was broken up into a bunch of different parts. Piss on that.

I did some more searching and I came across something better (well, not better than MST3k-that's crazy talk), or possibly worse depending on your outlook. I'm not going to say much about it, mainly because I've never had the pleasure of watching it. However, if everything I've heard is true, I'm certain to like it, much like I like the films of one Edward D. Wood Jr.

Ladies and gentlemen, my gift to you (and to myself) this Christmas is the infamous "Star Wars Holiday Special", starring Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford and...Bea Arthur. Come for the Force, stay for the Bea.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Sunday Music Dump

Crazy Christmas Redux

Before I switched gears on the mentally ill xmas carols post, I went hunting for an appropriate picture to go with it. I couldn't find one that suited me, but I did find a bunch of odd Christmas music album covers, enough that I thought it warranted it's own post. I'm probably wrong, and it DOESN'T warrant it's own post, but I've never let that stop me before.

Nothing very special about this one, but it's Liberace, therefore campy, therefore it's going in:





This one comes with a complimentary cheeseburger:





I don't know what's going on here:





"Mom! Call the cops, The Temptations are peeping in the windows again!"





This one isn't so strange on the surface (in fact, I quite like the Ronettes), but the words "A Christmas Gift For You, From Phil Spector" made me guffaw:




I just plain want this one:




And finally, Oooh you're gonna buy my Christmas album, ohhh:

Christmas CarLOLs

I read a Daily Mail article yesterday about a magazine that's edited by mental health patients that's caused a bit of a to-do. See, they published a list of Christmas carols with tweaked titles that take a little piss out of various psychological maladies. The problem is, some woman with a big ol' stick up her butt has pitched a fit and made them pull the list because she got all offended or something. Blogger won't let me link the article for some reason, but it's just your basic bloated, hokey Daily Mail story, so it's no big deal. The only good part of the story is the list of carols, and I'm a-put it here for your convenience, plus it makes me laugh, which is the important thing.

Subtle Plans Are Here Again

Due to various holiday plans and preparations, I'm posting the saturday movie a couple of days early. I've got a ridiculous amount of things I have to do in the next few days, and if I get five minutes to myself (highly unlikely), I want to spend it doing absolutely nothing, not fighting with Blogger.

On top of all that, I really just don't FEEL like posting. Every year, I look forward to Christmas, and then when it gets close to it, I get depressed. I don't know why, exactly; it's a fairly recent development, just in the last few years. I suppose it has something to do with becoming a mother, and having that feeling of not being able to make Christmas as happy an experience for Harper as it was for me when I was a kid. But then again, maybe I've glossed over my childhood memories to make them seem happier than they really were, I guess everyone does to a degree. There's something more than that at play, but I've never been able to put my finger on it, plus I've already been down quite a bit lately, even before the idea of another Christmas sunk in-put it all together, and I feel like pure crap.

But enough of me and my whining, on to the movie...

This is not what I was planning to post. I had a film all picked out, and for whatever reason, I changed my mind. I happened upon this one purely by accident, and when I found it, I was surprised I hadn't already thought of it. Without realizing it, watching this has become a tradition for me: for the past, say, 5 years, late Christmas Eve/Early Christmas morning, I watch it while doing some Xmas-related mom activities (you know the ones I mean...Yes, you do) and I think that this year in particular, it fits my mood more than anything else I could post in it's place: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, Rudolph, Silent Night, Deadly Night-none of those really fit my mentality of "Depressed, yet able to laugh" (well, not so sure about SN,DN-that might produce a chuckle.)

So, what's this movie (not exactly a movie) I keep droning on about? It's Blackadder's Christmas Carol (see? Not a movie.) It's got Rowan Atkinson, Miranda Richardson, Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry and, oh yes, Hugh Laurie (who, despite popular belief, had a career before House); It's got your clever bastardization of Dickens; and it's got your dry and semi-tacky British humor that all the young kids seem to like these days-if that's not perfect holiday entertainment...I can't think of a clever metaphor to insert there, so I should probably end the post now.

Happy Holidays, kids.

The Richest Man in Town

While searching for a film today, I came across 2 that would be perfect for my whole "December Saturdays Christmas Extravaganza" (yes, I gave it a name...Not a very good name, but it gets the point across). My final decision on which one to post came down to practicality: next weekend, I'm probably going to be too busy to post anything, and if I'm not too busy to post, I will definitely be too busy to say much about the film, so I'd rather wait and post something that I don't have much to say in regards to. I'm not too happy about doing it this way, because the film I'm posting today is more closely associated with Christmas, and I'd rather wait and post it ON Xmas day, or at least only a few days before. But I can't.

This movie...

I have a distinct memory of the first time I actually saw this movie, even remember the exact date: December 24, 1991. At age 15, I had already become the strange hybrid of film snob and celluloid trash connisseur that I am today. In the wee hours of that Christmas eve morning, my trashy side had just finished watching Popcorn, a silly, late-80s horror flick. After it was over, at around 2am, I was still wide awake and looking for something else to watch. I was flipping through the channels, and upon seeing an ad for It's A Wonderful Life, which was about to start, I paused and a bizarre inner debate commenced.

Until that time, I had managed to avoid seeing IaWL, which was rather difficult, because at that time, you had to ACTIVELY evade it since they showed it like 10 times a day around Christmas. Everything I had heard about this movie suggested it was nothing more than treacly smaltz, and I wanted nothing to do with it. Still, I had a need to cleanse my mental pallete of the grungy aftertaste of Popcorn, and I figured this would do the trick. Besides, even at 15 I knew that no sane person can fairly judge anything without familiarizing themselves with it first, so until I actually watched it, I was exempt from criticizing it. So, I threw up my hands and said "Fuck it" (even at 15, I had a potty mouth) and prepared myself for unapologetic sappiness.

Cut to me a little over 2 hours later, laying on my bed and sobbing into a pillow. I already knew what was going to happen even before I started watching it, I had already seen the ending long before then, and I thought I had prepared myself for the uber-happiness I was witnessing. What I HADN'T done was take everything that happened prior to the ending, into account: that damn Jimmy Stewart made me give a rat's ass about George Bailey and his effect on the people around him, the events of his life, and his eventual reward, led to me become an emotional, incoherrent, blood-shot wreck. In other words, I liked it.

If you haven't ever seen it, and have avoided it because you think it's uncool and corny, you need to be more open minded. It is corny, very much so, but as for uncool, there's a few thing you should take into consideration before you judge too harshly.

Dalton Trumbo, Dorothy Parker, and Clifford Odets all did uncredited work on the script. That's cool.

The film was labeled "subversive" by the FBI, due to it's political statements about post-WWII society and was also deemed communist propaganda because of the film's stance in reference to the common man up against big business, and Frank Capra's association with left-wing organizations. That's also cool.

The scene at the dance, when George and Mary are doing the Charleston: that guy that opens up the pool? That's the guy who played Alfalfa on the Little Rascals, and by definition, any movie that features someone who was brutally murdered is very cool...You know, if you're twisted like I am.

I realize that no one actually watches the full length films that I post: it's takes up too much time, not to mention it's a bit of a strain to watch something that's about 5x5 inches in size. I post them because it's fun, not because I expect anyone to watch them. That being said, I still don't expect anyone to watch this on the computer, but I DO recommend that if you've never seen this, that you catch it when it's on tv, or go out and rent it: Occasionally, even the most jaded among us need something to warm our hearts, and what better time is there to do that, than during the holidays?

Weird/Cute/Great

Very short, 10 minute Saturday movie today. I think that until Christmas, I will post nothing but holiday-related clips on saturdays, because although I have a nasty habit of bitching about Christmas and everything that it entails, in reality I love it. I guess I'm just a big kid, because the lights, the decorations, the movies, the presents, the good cheer, Santy Claus-I dig all that shit. Don't tell nobody.

I know that you're looking at the still thinking "I know what it is, so I'm not going to watch it." Well, you couldn't be more....Half wrong. It is that, but only visually. The voices are those of the cast of Scrubs, and they do not adhere to the original script. I think I've only ever seen maybe one episode of Scrubs, but after this, I may have to add it to my tv viewing schedule. I probably won't, but this clip is still very cute. Give it a chance, won't you? Thank you and good day.