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The Task Ahead

I know it’s only been one day, and I’m not one to have stars in my eyes, but it actually does feel like we may be entering an all-new era of politics and governance.

I don’t have the words to say how impressed I am with this new President. He’s obviously intelligent and competent, but at the same time he doesn’t seem full of himself, nor has he been trying to suggest that he has all the answers, or that he will be able to solve our problems for us. On the contrary, he has said many times that all of us will have to pull together to work our way out of the various messes we find ourselves in, and he says it in such a way that I actually want to do just that.

His natural political enemies, the ultraconservative hard core Christian right, seem to be a little scarce these days, and they are reduced to rolling their eyes, making fun of the concepts of “hope” and “change,” and predicting that President Obama will simply take everybody’s money and throw it down the nearest liberal rat hole. Rush Limbaugh chortles “This guy is in so far over his head…” but his words ring false, maybe even to Rush himself.

Anyone who reads this blog or knows me even a little knows that I am skeptical of public figures almost to the point of cynicism. They always have ulterior motives, and I don’t trust them. I’ve said here before that you have to have an inflated ego even to run for president. So by (my) definition, presidents must be a somewhat unsavory bunch.

And yet.

During my life a few presidents have looked realistically into the face of daunting adversity and called the nation to service. Some, like Jimmy Carter, were kind of earnest bummers. Others, most notably JFK, spoke eloquently and inspired a generation. I find myself inspired by this president, and wanting to give him a little extra slack. I catch myself choking up at the unfolding of this particular bit of history. I’m open to the call for responsibility. I’m suspending my disbelief. The nation — the world — is in big trouble, yet I’m feeling hopeful. I’m thinking OK, what role can I play?

Who knows? Maybe we really can save the world.

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So Long, George W. Bush

Well, folks, it’s over.

Worry

Tuesday is the last day of the George W. Bush presidency. I don’t feel exhilarated about that, as I thought I would. It would have been more satisfying to kick him out in 2004, or impeach him after 2006. Heaven knows he deserved to be sent home, or to prison, for most of his time in office. Quite a few Americans knew the truth in November of 2000, that we would not be well-served by “electing” a nincompoop who was, as they say, “born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.” Alas, almost half the electorate thought they’d like to have a beer with him. I wish they’d done just that, instead of voting for him. Eight years later, all but a small fraction of us wish we’d had that beer, gotten him drunk, and sent him home in an ice storm driving an old pickup with one headlight and bad tires.

In any case, we can hardly wait for him to leave our White House.

However, I am not down with the new President Obama’s apparent intention to let George and his band of criminal pals get away with what they have done. This is not having sex in the oval office, or failing to pay your taxes. The Bush Administration did Big Crimes, and we will all be paying for them for generations, so really, shouldn’t someone involved be held to account?

Let’s look at the charges (highlights only – I don’t have all day):

  • Asleep at the switch on September 11, 2001. He is still bragging about “keeping America safe,” even though he ignored repeated warnings that an attack was planned.
  • Illegal wiretaps. Yes, he spied on Americans without warrants, a clear violation of federal law. Yes, he admitted it publicly, and promised to keep doing it. Yes, he kept doing it.
  • Invading Iraq. They had no weapons of mass destruction and they had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks of 2001. He fabricated evidence because he wanted to attack somebody, and he ignored or lied about intelligence counter to his delusions. He took troops out of Afghanistan, where the terrorists were hiding, to do this, thus on multiple levels he made our country (and the world) less safe.
  • Federal response to Hurricane Katrina. Here’s a few quotes from the National Weather Service’s warning about Katrina: “…MOST OF THE AREA WILL BE UNINHABITABLE FOR WEEKS…PERHAPS LONGER…THE MAJORITY OF INDUSTRIAL BUILDINGS WILL BECOME NON FUNCTIONAL…ALL WOOD FRAMED LOW RISING APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL BE DESTROYED…HIGH RISE OFFICE AND APARTMENT BUILDINGS WILL SWAY DANGEROUSLY…A FEW TO THE POINT OF TOTAL COLLAPSE. ALL WINDOWS WILL BLOW OUT…THE BLOWN DEBRIS WILL CREATE ADDITIONAL DESTRUCTION. PERSONS…PETS…AND LIVESTOCK EXPOSED TO THE WINDS WILL FACE CERTAIN DEATH IF STRUCK…POWER OUTAGES WILL LAST FOR WEEKS…” As this monster storm approached, George Bush ate cake (literally!) with John McCain, leaving his totally unprepared crony Michael Brown in charge of FEMA. People died. The city was destroyed.
  • Obstruction of justice at Justice. Competent U.S. Attorneys were fired for political reasons, and replaced by right-wing loyalists in an attempt to rig the Justice Department. The Department was used to carry out politically motivated prosecutions, in violation of the Constitution.
  • Signing statements. When he was not able to veto a law he didn’t like, Bush would simply sign it and issue a statement indicating that he didn’t agree with it and would not comply. Depending on how you count them, he has challenged up to 750 legally-enacted laws this way, more than all other presidents combined. But, signing statement or not, once a law is signed by the President, it’s the law, and if the President ignores it he is breaking the law.
  • Torture. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. Suspension of habeus corpus. Detention without charges. “Enhanced” interrogation. Kangaroo courts. Extraordinary rendition. I can say no more.
  • Valerie Plame. Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby committed treason by outing her as a CIA agent to get back at her husband for calling them out on their lies about Saddam Hussein buying bomb materials from Niger. Bush either knew or should have.
  • Looting the Treasury. A few contractors, most notably Vice President Cheney’s own company Haliburton, have made billions of dollars on no-bid government contracts, delivering crappy service at inflated prices. Adding insult to injury, contractors often work side by side with qualified U.S. service personnel making a tenth of the money. Meanwhile, Bush’s corporate welfare and tax cuts for the extremely rich have redistributed the wealth away from working Americans and up into the vaults of the upper upper class.
  • Asleep at the switch as the economy tanked. Bush is trying to blame Bill Clinton for the current economic meltdown, and while there is more than enough blame to go around, you’d think the first MBA president, while in control of all three branches of government for six years, would have noticed what was happening in the Wall Street Casino and done something about it. But he didn’t, and he had no idea how to even slow the bleeding after the crash, and now we will have a depression. Thanks, George!

Some of this behavior is patently criminal, some of it merely incompetent. Either way, the Bush presidency has ruined the lives of millions and caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands more, both in the United States and around the world. No U.S. president in history has done so much damage, been so unqualified, so blithely clueless or so stupidly stubborn in the face of the facts. And he continues to make speeches and give interviews, making excuses for his failures, trying to rewrite history, and convince someone, anyone, that he is not leaving the world in a shambles. I mean, he took just eight years to fuck everything up, and the least he could do would be to show a little humility as he departs.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m hopeful for the future. I’ve always thought that smart people, while not infallible, have a better chance of governing well than dumbasses, and I believe we are getting a smart and thoughtful new President to lead us through the coming dark years.

Hey, we’ve had our fun. We scornfully blew off Old Europe, we abrogated nuclear treaties, we drove huge gas guzzling pigmobiles, we borrowed money we had no way of paying back, we used the exploding equity in our homes as ATM machines, we kicked some Muslim butt in the bad, bad Middle East, we partied hearty for eight years. But We The People now have to suffer the throbbing hangover, and accept responsibility for our part in it, and pay the bills for our gigantic party of self-absorption. It seems only right that George W. Bush should have to chip in in some real way to pay for his ruinous eight years in office, for his crimes and misdemeanors, for his wooden-headed arrogance, and for his constant mispronunciation of the word “nuclear.”

After that, let the new era begin!

____________________________________________

I know I’ve left out some important Bush outrages and scandals, if not some more impeachable offenses. Feel free to fill in the blanks in the comments below. Truth now, reconciliation later. It’ll do you good.

Also, for excruciatingly more detail on the Bush crimes, see Hugh Makes A List. And thanks, Hugh, for this invaluable reference.

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Sooner Or Later

You always knew when you were around my old rock’n’roll friend Tom Santo that sooner or later something bad was going to happen, and now he has gone and died on us.

I hadn’t seen him since our band split up in the early eighties, but I got a call from one of the other guys in the group last night. Tom had had a seizure, gone into a coma, come out of it, was recovering, then got some kind of infection and was gone by morning. I said I’d been thinking of Tom and wished I could have seen him, but I couldn’t track him down. Turns out he didn’t want anyone to track him down.

I met him when he joined the wedding band I was playing with in 1975. We were thrown together in a showbiz twist of fate: in order to mount a tour of Japan, he needed a band and we needed a singer. Playing hard rock for concert audiences in a foreign country seemed like a good idea to us, compared to what we were doing, but there was just one catch: We had to leave in five days. I would learn that with Tom, everything happened fast. He was always late, and always in hurry.

The promoter pulled strings to get us passports in two days instead of three weeks. We had a couple of days of frenzied rehearsals. I could tell that we were not ready musically, but Tom wasn’t fazed. I’m sure his mind wasn’t on such details. He was no doubt thinking of adoring crowds and cute Asian girls. Before any of us were fully aware of what we had agreed to, we were on an L-1011 bound for Tokyo.

That trip was a blur of liquor, limos and laughs. I’d like to say I’ll never forget it, but the fact is I don’t remember much about it. I do recall that Tom was clearly the star of the show and the center of attention from the start to the finish. He wasn’t the eye of the hurricane — he was the hurricane.

The next time I saw Tom was when he brought his new band into my studio in Hollywood. This was around 1978, I think. We were recording a lot of L.A. punk bands: X, The Alley Cats, Black Randy and the Metro Squad, The Weirdos, and “New Wave” was just starting to happen. Tom was oblivious to all that, and his band played good old fashioned straight ahead rock, written by Tom himself. We recorded six songs, and before that project was finished I had gone from engineer to band member. As with so much of my involvement with Tom, I still don’t know how that happened.

That band became The Rev, and played the whole L.A. punk/new wave scene: Madame Wong’s, Club 88, The Hong Kong Cafe. It was exactly like being rock stars, except we didn’t have a record deal, so we never got ripped off by a record company. But we worked hard, played our asses off and partied like crazy. Basically, wherever Tom was, there was a party, and it was crazy.

After a couple of years with no big breaks, The Rev disbanded. Once again, the collapse happened fast and I don’t really know the reasons. If I did, that story would have to wait for another post anyway.

I never saw Tom again.

After a few years I heard he was doing a cabaret show at The Dresden, but I couldn’t find the time to check it out. Over the years I asked old band members and friends if they’d seen him and how could I get in touch with him, but there was always something.

The last time I saw Tom we were in our thirties and he had more energy than any three teenagers. When I’m rockin’ and rollin’ on stage these days (yes, I still do), sometimes I get a glimpse of myself, maybe in the mirror behind the bar, maybe just in my mind, and I wonder what the hell I think I’m doing, and how long can this go on? The next time I think that, I’ll remember you, old friend, and I’ll answer the question as I’m sure you would have:

One more time!

 _______________________________________

I don’t have a picture to post, but I can see Tom in this recording. Maybe you will too.

   Click the blue button to hear Sooner or Later, by The Rev, featuring Tom Santo, circa 1981.

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Puttin’ In The Fix

In the best tradition of American democracy, I am trying to rig an election.

Unlike some evildoers, however, I am trying to fix it so the best candidate wins the 2008 Weblog Award for Best Diarist.

The best candidate is, of course, my friend Blue Girl in a Red State, and you should click here to read some stuff that she’s written. No doubt you will never be back to read this boring blog, but that’s a chance I’m gladly taking.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter. You know I would do this for you, so please do it for me.

2008 Weblog Award site

Click the image above or click here to cast your vote for Blue Girl in A Red State. You can vote every 24 hours until next Tuesday, one time per day from each computer that you use. So if you have a computer at home and one at work or school, vote once a day from each one.

Oh, and would it encourage you to do this for me if I told you that each time you vote for Blue Girl, a lonely, starving puppy with no prospects and no hope is adopted by a happy family and showered with love and delicious, meaty bones, and allowed to sleep in the bed sometimes?

Well, it’s true.

Lonely Puppy

Vote For Blue Girl

Click the puppy to save him, and remember,
Blue Girl In A Red State ROCKS!!

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Bombing For Peace

The Israelis are now saying that they won’t stop their assault on Gaza until peace and tranquility are achieved.

Please forgive my anti-Semitic, overly simplistic stance on this, but that is like saying you are going to keep smashing up the china shop with a baseball bat until everything is back in one piece. The Palestinians and the Israelis might have intractable differences and tribal grudges and no doubt there is a history of ugliness between them such that almost all of them have some event in their family’s past to prove that the other side is evil and intent upon destroying them. They need to get over it and start trying to figure out how to settle their differences before any more schools or hospitals or lives are destroyed.

I used to think that my country, the U.S.A., had the responsibility and the credibility to enter into the violent affairs of others in the world and help negotiate a truce, one that might lead to a lasting peace. Certainly the parties in the Palestinian mess have demonstrated that they can’t manage it themselves. Sadly, the United States no longer holds the moral high ground in these matters, and any attempt at diplomatic intervention on our part would justifiably be met with suspicion, if not outright jeers. Who knows if any nation has clean enough hands to step in and help resolve the ongoing bitterness?

I’ve heard it said that the first casualty of war is truth. That’s a nice metaphor, but there is real blood spilling in Palestine right now, and no civilized nation should sit by and allow it to go on.

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Now It’s Winter For Sure

Is it the saddest day of the year?

It’s only January 4th, so maybe it’s too early to say, but today is the day that all the Christmas lights and holiday displays come down off everyone’s houses and out of their front yards. My neighbors do a fine job each year. We go for walks around the neighborhood most evenings all year round, so in December we get an eyeful of everybody’s handiwork with the decorations.

Lit HouseI didn’t do a scientific survey, but I think there were more displays this year than the year before. In fact, I’ve noticed a gradual decline in the exuberance of the Christmas decorating over the past five years or so, until this year. I don’t know why such a thing would happen. During The Decline, I figured it was probably because of the general malaise abroad in the land, with salaries stagnating, the environment slowly unraveling and the village idiot in the White House callously sacrificing more and more lives to assuage his ego, with nobody apparently able to stop him.

But a lot of my neighbors seem to have perked up this year. Maybe they are thinking that at least they can have their Festival of Lights, even if so much else has been taken from them, and bless them for that, as it brings me cheer during the time of the solstice. And really, what is an extra ten or fifteen bucks for electricity when your house has lost a hundred thousand dollars of value?

So the neighborhood was lit like Las Vegas for the past month with colored lights, white lights, bluish LED’s, flashing lights, inflatable Santas and snowmen, wire-frame illuminated reindeer, animated toy trains, red and white candy canes — our walks were breathtaking sightseeing tours. Most of all I was touched by whatever that need is that we seem to have, to light things and show our warmth to the world. Glad tidings!

But no self respecting homeowner can leave their lights up past this weekend, and so they were all out on New Year’s Day, and yesterday and finally today, pulling down all the strings of lights and wreaths and baubles and bringing to a close once and for all this beautiful holiday season.

I didn’t put up any lights or anything out front this year, or any year, because I can’t bear to take them down. But a few weeks ago I got a couple of strings of “icicles,” those tiny white lights that hang down from your eaves or rain gutters and try to look like the real thing. Mine are plain-Jane. They don’t flash and they’re not sequenced to music. They just shine, like hope. I put them up on the garage, facing my back yard. You can’t can see them from the street, and I’m not taking them down, ever. Their message, and mine, is “Peace on earth, and good will to everyone.”

I can hardly wait for next December.

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Happy 2009

Happy 2009
We may be in for a rough ride in the coming year, but I feel hopeful instead of resentful for the first time in, oh, eight years. Jesus, that was a long administration wasn’t it? In retrospect, Al Gore should never have given up in 2000, and if he couldn’t win the election in court (after winning in the voting process) he should have challenged Bush to a duel — pistols at sunrise — and if Bush (or more likely Cheney) had shot him, we should have risen up as a nation and rejected his ass right then and there. We didn’t do any of that, so in a way we got what was coming to us.

Anyway, I feel good about the immediate future, in the way you feel good about not hitting yourself on the head with a hammer, after doing so for fifteen minutes.

Which is to say I love you all and I hope more of you will stop by and comment during 2009. Whether you do or not, may you enjoy peace, love and beauty for one year. You can come back next December to have that renewed.

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I’ll Be Home For Christmas

I guess I don’t have to go anywhere to be home for Christmas.Home For Christmas

I have two brothers and two sisters, but both our parents have long ago left this world, so we will not all be getting on planes tomorrow and traveling somewhere to get “home” for Christmas. The notion always appealed to me, though, when we used to do it. Now that I think of it, I realize that home was where Mom was, wherever that might be. It felt good to be together with them all, in her warm home.

As I mentioned in my previous post (and elsewhere), I love Christmas music, and after Blue Girl teamed up with Neddie Jingo to give us all a song for Christmas two years ago I decided I’d like to get in on the fun. Since Blue Girl wouldn’t do it with me (sing, I mean) last year I performed alone. It was so much fun for me that I’m doing it again this year, and since I really am home, the song I chose is “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” by Buck Ram, Kim Gannon and Walter Kent, made famous by Bing Crosby in 1943.

Too late, I realized that it was beyond me to pull this one off. I ended up spending this evening just trying to make it presentable. I promise next year I’ll tackle something that is within my power. In the mean time, won’t you please give a listen to my 2008 Christmas song?

For last year’s selection, go here.

And I have to tell you that you really should check out Blue Girl’s and Neddie Jingo’s three Christmas Collaborations, here, here and this year’s surprising tune here.

I wish every one of you a very Merry Christmas, unless you celebrate something different than me, in which case I wish you peace, love and beauty.

==========END OF POST – START OF TECH TALK==========

For those geeks who might like to know this stuff, here’s how this was recorded: I used a monster PC that I built myself, and a multitrack recording application called Sonar 7. The gorgeous electric piano is actually a Roland D-50 Linear Synthesizer, an 80’s-era relic that can make sounds which have still never been duplicated. The guitar is a Schecter Blackjack solid body with Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups (I used only the neck pickup) played through an old Line 6 Pod. The orchestral sounds are string samples from a Roland software synth (inside the PC), triggered by me playing the D-50. So there are just three instruments and one voice on the recording, all performed by me, even though I don’t know how to play keyboards.

Here’s my log of the evening’s activities:

7:13 PM (PST): Have to finish this thing tonight, or else I might as well wait until next year. Six vocal takes last night, for a total of 13. I think I finally got a usable one, but was too tired to listen to it. This really makes me feel like an amateur. I hope my singing is good enough. Nuts to those jerks who say “Good enough, isn’t.”

7:48 PM: OK, the vocal will have to do. A little reverb, and brighten it a bit. Now must fill up long, boring passage in the middle where nothing is happening. I’d like to do something with chimes or some Christmas-y sound, but no time. Must be guitar – only instrument I actually know how to play.

8:28 PM: This would sound better on acoustic guitar, but I’d have to put new strings on the Gibson, plus it would really hurt my fingers. I’ll try for a Larry Carlton vibe with the Blackjack.

9:44 PM: FUCK! I’ll never finish this. I’m in over my head. What was I thinking? I can’t play this kind of song. Plus, I used the electric guitar, and my fingers hurt anyway.

10:10 PM: Well, the guitar part ain’t good enough, but it isn’t gonna get any better tonight. Now, let’s see about the string part.

10:54 PM: Strings. Ha! Who needs string players, with their prima donna attitudes?

10:56 PM: It’s sparse, but I think it’s finished. I should learn to stop before I clutter it all up.

11:10 PM: Why is the mix so lopsided?

11:11 PM: Barb’s gone to bed, so I have to finish this on headphones. I hope it doesn’t suck when I hear it in the morning.

12:25 AM Christmas Eve: OK, I’m putting it up. I’m worried about the mix, but it’s too late to fix. Must get some sleep.

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Christmas Songs That Don’t Make Me Puke

I love Christmas.

Silver Bells

I really do: the cold weather, the religious and pre-religious traditions, the Christmas trees, the lights on the houses, the early darkness each day, the way everyone seems a little friendlier and mellower (possibly related to the heavy drinking), and most of all, the music.

Hey, I know Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th, that somehow the early Christians managed to grab this ancient pagan celebration and make it their own. A magnificent scam, if you ask me, and I don’t hold it against them. It doesn’t take away from the fun and beauty of the music.

As usual, this year I am listening to a radio station here in L.A. (103.5 KOST-FM) that plays nothing but Christmas music 24 hours a day from Thanksgiving to Christmas Day, and I’ve also made my own compilation CD of Christmas music. The two pastimes have caused me to think about the type of Christmas music that I like, and the kind that makes me puke. Somewhat to my surprise, I find that I am a conservative Christmas music lover. Basically, I like the older, more traditional stuff — that which I’ve been hearing since I was about five years old. There are exceptions, naturally, and those are on my list below.

What makes me puke? Well, first of all, novelty songs. Please spare me “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer,” “Christmas At Ground Zero,” and the Mother of All Christmas Novelty Songs, “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth,” sung by that obnoxious little shit back in the 1950’s — sorry, I can’t remember his name, but all of his “S’s” were whistled. Christmas is too beautiful and special to be despoiled by this kind of crap.

High on the “Makes Me Puke” list would also be Burl Ives’ “Holly Jolly Christmas,” with it’s arbitrary refrain and dumbass two-four pickin’ (and, presumably, idiotic grinnin’). I will not kiss her once for you, Burl. Also kind of pukey: Hyper-religious Christmas songs, especially if sung in Latin, like “Adeste Fidelis.” Come on, Catholics — Saturnalia is for everyone!

Here’s my list of Christmas Songs That Don’t Make Me Puke, in no particular order:

  • Silent Night – Almost any version. I like the story of how this song came about. A priest in a parish too poor to afford the usual magnificent church organ wrote it and played it on his guitar, a shocking act of insolence for his day.
  • The Christmas Song – Mel Torme wrote it, and sang it serviceably well, but the knockout version is by the honey-voiced Nat King Cole. Suh-weet!
  • Baby, It’s Cold Outside – What says Christmas more than Dean Martin hustling the object of his late-night desire to stay with him just a little longer? Don’t we all want to keep someone warm on these cold December nights?
  • The Little Drummer Boy – This instant classic by The Harry Simeone Chorale reminds us that we needn’t give gifts of gold and silver to be appreciated. Even the ox and lamb kept time.
  • Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas – Judy Garland’s plaintive original rendering of this song from the 1944 movie “Meet Me In St. Louis” expresses all the heartbreak of all the unmet expectations of all my over-anticipated Christmases past.
  • All I Want For Christmas Is You – Mariah Carey out-Spectors Phil on this BIG production number. It’s pure pop fluff, and it might not stay on the list for long, but Mariah manages to avoid her charcteristic note-torturing vocal style on this one, and she gets me boppin’ when I hear it these days.
  • I’ll Be Home For Christmas – Lots of great recordings of this song of sweet longing, from Bing Crosby’s understated version to The Beach Boys’ thousand-part near-a capella rendition.
  • Please Come Home For Christmas – The Eagles and Aaron Neville are the rock and soul opposite sides of this burnished Christmas coin, which itself is the flip side of “I’ll Be Home For Christmas.” How we pine for our missing loved ones at Christmas!
  • White Christmas – The all-time Christmas classic. Bing Crosby, “…just like the ones I used to know.” Nuff said.
  • Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree – Brenda Lee. This one and “Jingle Bell Rock” are the earliest rock Christmas songs I can think of, and they made it OK for generations of rockers to try their hands at a new holiday sound track. Thanks, Brenda (and Bobby Helms)!
  • Jingle Bell Rock – Bobby Helms. See “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree,” above.
  • Oh Holy Night – Al Green’s soaring, soulful vocal makes the sacred secular, and gives me chills. Testify, brother!
  • Winter Wonderland – The song manages to be a Christmas song while making no reference to Christmas, and The Eurythmics’ Annie Lennox gives perhaps the single most original and powerful reinterpretation of any holiday tune.
  • Sleigh Ride – The Carpenters. Holiday frivolity is the perfect theme for these lightweights, and almost any tune from their 1978 “Christmas Portrait” LP would do. I choose this one because, in addition to Karen’s warm and gorgeous voice you also get to hear some rare vocalizing (on the bridge) by her creepy brother Richard. (“It’ll be the perfect ending to a PER-fect day!”). You just know he told her she was too fat.
  • There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays – I remember the Kraft Music Hall Christmas specials on TV in the early 1960’s. Black and white, prime time evidence that Christmas really was just around the corner. I was in love with half of the June Taylor dancers, and Perry Como could have been singing any old song while they were on screen.
  • Blue Christmas – By The King, of course. We return one last time to the theme of loss and loneliness for the holidays. Don’t worry, Elvis – I’ll meet you at Martini’s for some holiday cheer, OK?

I feel a lot better now, as it looks like there are actually quite a few Christmas Songs That Don’t Make Me Puke. I know I’ve left out some really important ones, but I think I should stop now before I include every holiday tune ever written. As I said, I love me some Christmas music.

You must have some favorites. This is the time of year to give up being too hip, too aloof, too cool and Above It All. Feel free to break down, join in and get sappy with me.

As always, every one of you warms my heart at Christmas.

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Christmas Story Rerun

I have decorated my blog for the holiday (see sidebar on main page), and I’m rerunning my Christmas post from 2004, because I’m so filled with love and holiday spirit that I can’t think of anything new right now.

___________________________________________

I was the last one out of the office on Christmas Eve, and the holiday was pissing me off.

I don’t really celebrate Christmas anymore, but I have a soft spot for it — the wish for peace, the kindness to each other, the fresh kindled hope for a better future, blah, blah, blah. It’s sweet, you know? But of course we have done our best to ruin it. The buildup is so huge I am always let down by the reality, once it arrives. And I find that I don’t believe anyone’s holiday wishes. I think they’re just platitudes. I was sick of peoples’ hollow Xmas greetings, and feeling grouchy about the whole thing.

So it’s around sunset, it would be totally dark in fifteen minutes and a chilly wind was starting up. I was leaving the office, not smiling, grousing my way out the back door because the front was locked, and I get half way down the outdoor steps when I see her standing in the parking lot. She’s old now, and none of us knows how long she’s been living in and around our parking lot, but she’s been here longer than I have. Her grey and white coat is filthy and her body is impossibly scrawny. As I go down the steps, the heavy security door bangs shut behind me. She hears it and steps warily over to where she can sort of lean on the side of the building, her head cocked my way.

“Hey there, old girl,” I say. She is blind, or nearly so, and she turns toward the sound of my voice. We have seen each other around for years, but she has shown me recognition only in the past month or so, and even now some days she doesn’t. She hesitates, then takes a shaky step toward me. She recognizes me, and even though the office door has closed and I won’t be able to get back in to wash my hands, I know that I will have to pet her, and that her fur will leave a greasy residue that I will have to wear all the way home. I put my briefcase down and sit on the bottom step.

“C’mon, sweetheart,” I coax, and she walks very slowly toward me, until I can just reach out and touch her bony neck. I scratch for a moment, as she tries to make sure that I mean no harm. When she is satisfied that I am safe she comes all the way over to where I am sitting. I scratch her and amazingly, she purrs. She is so decrepit I am surprised that she can purr. My gentle petting rocks her whole body, and I can see that it is only with effort and concentration that she is able to remain standing.

“Poor old baby. It’s a tough life, isn’t it?” I ask in my gentlest cat-calming voice. She lifts her head and stares into my face with her blank, milky eyes.

Yes, it’s tough, she says, but look at me. I’ve survived. Her voice is a high-pitched croak.

Her frailty is so obvious I don’t want to discuss survival with her. “Well, that’s great,” I say, stroking her cheek. “Uh, where are you sleeping tonight?”

I’ll be here as usual, she says, and a shudder runs through her. Maybe under that pickup truck over there. Delicately, she places one skinny paw on my thigh. Do you mind? she asks.

My pants will have to be cleaned. “No, of course not. Come on up.” She needs my help to get into my lap, and more assistance to get comfortable, but at last she is lying there, more at less at ease. The effort has exhausted her, and she just lies there for a minute.

You know, she says at last, I’ve been such a fool.

“What do you mean?” I ask, surprised.

She sighs. For all these years I feared and hated you people. I hid from you, and I looked upon all of you with distrust and suspicion. She looked sheepish. I bit one of you once, a long time ago.

“Well, that’s not so foolish,” I say. “You’re feral, and we don’t have such a good reputation among your kind. It’s totally understandable.”

No, it was wrong. If I had known all along, that all you wanted to do was pet me and feed me… She trailed off. I mean, where did I think those bowls of food and water were coming from, right outside that back door? I was so blind — she smiled — I mean before I was blind, you know? I shifted a little, and we had to get rearranged. She spoke again.

My heart was closed. I couldn’t see the kindness that was offered to me. I had to do everything for myself. I thought everyone who approached meant to hurt me, or take something from me. I’m ashamed to say that I taught my kids to be the same way. All of them are gone now, bless ’em, except for my youngest. I hope it’s not too late for her. She’s a pretty little thing, you know. Takes after her father. She coughed. You might not believe it, but I was pretty once, too.

The old gal in my lap — and this turn of conversation — was making me uncomfortable. “Well, I think you’re still pretty…”

She coughed again, and it went on for several seconds this time. Don’t kid me, sonny. I’m a foolish old hag, and I’m almost blind, but a girl knows.

I could think of no comeback for that. She wasn’t allowing any flattery, any platitudes. Overhead, the wind whistled through the wires.

“Look,” I say, “would you like to come over to my place tonight? It’s warm, and I’ve got plenty of food. You could take a warm bath, if you want.”

She stood up in my lap, and crept slowly back onto the asphalt at the base of the steps, stretching her arthritic limbs as she walked. That’s a sweet offer, sonny. A few years ago I would have jumped at it. But now I’m afraid I’m too set in my ways. I couldn’t sleep in a house. I’d be too nervous knowing I couldn’t run if I had to. Besides, I’ve got my Little One to look out for. She’s around here somewhere, and she won’t come out while you’re around. She still needs me, more than she knows. She doesn’t pay much attention to her old mom these days — you know how they get. She still has a chance, though. I hope I can show her that she doesn’t have to make my mistakes. I have to show her… she coughed some more, and I thought there was a catch in her voice. …I have to show her how to open her heart to the beauty and pain and love that is all around, instead of hiding in fear and suspicion. She gazed nowhere in particular and was silent for a moment. Before I go, you know?

I stood and picked up my briefcase. There would be no use inviting both of them — we lived in different worlds, and this parking lot was nothing more than the place those worlds touched. But I was glad we had met, and touched, this night.

Thanks for listening, sonny, and for petting me. It’s really what I’ve always wanted, if only I’d known. Crazy, isn’t it? After running and hiding all those years, now I can’t get enough of it. And thank you all for the food — the Little One and I, we appreciate it.

She turned and started to make her way along the side of the building, toward the alley. “Merry Christmas!” I called, and for the first time that year, I really meant it.

She stopped and turned. Merry Christmas to you, sonny. Now scoot. Go home and be with your wife. She’ll be waiting for you. Then she walked stiffly on, and around the corner of the building.

I could feel the dirt on my hands. I looked at my pants, and they were covered with her dirty fur. A perfect half-moon had risen and floated low over the buildings in the twilight. Traffic rushed by on the boulevard. I turned and walked to my car.

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