My 62nd Christmas
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| Dick Nixon's favorite Christmas LP (and my dad's) |
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| Tom Lehrer |
On Christmas Day you can't get sore
Your fellow man you must adore
There's time to rob him all the more
The other 300 and 64....
Tom Lehrer, 1959
Not a particularly cheerful way to begin our annual Christmas salutation, I concede. In the fifties and mid-sixties, Tom Lehrer was (along with Stan Freberg) America's leading musical satirist. I just needed to give the mas a tip of the hat on this fine, yuletide morn. Although he has not released a commercial LP since 1965, I'm happy to tell you that Tom is still very much among the living. Look him up on YouTube when you have a moment to spare. You will laugh; I guarantee it.
Kill those turkeys, ducks and chickens
Mix the punch, drag out the Dickens
Even though the prospect sickens
Brother, here we go again!
I make no pretense at offering any kind of jolly holiday cheer. My life has gone into such a dark place that to do so would be hypocritical on my part. It's almost stunning when I realize what a complete cynic I have become. I've always been a connoisseur of comedy. Since I was about eight-years-old, I've been an admirer of the classic American comedians of Hollywood's so-called "golden" era in particular - except W.C. Fields. I never could understand what the big deal about Fields was. He disliked Charlie Chaplin which was all-the-more reason for me to keep my distance from the old bugger. When I was much younger I could never comprehend what was so funny about an upper-middle-aged curmudgeon, so embittered regarding his fellow human beings and society in general. I tell you, I just didn't get it! I get it now.
FUN FACT: Both Fields and Chaplin died on Christmas Day.
John Lennon once said, "where there's life there's hope". A dandy thing to contemplate! Unfortunately he uttered those words in the last interview he ever gave on this planet. Less than eight hours later he was murdered in cold blood outside his apartment building in merrie olde Manhattan. That horribleevent occurred at the beginning of the 1980 Christmas season. I truly believe that the last blissfully happy Christmas I ever experienced was in 1979. But I'm not that much of a pessimist. After all, where there's life....Never mind.
So don't mind me. It think, therefore I rant. Do enjoy yourselves. As I've said during numerous Christmases past, I prefer the way the English wish each other "Happy Christmas". I like that. Drug addicts, psychotics drunks and misers are often deliriously "merry"; they are almost never happy.
Happy Christmas, one and all!
Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
AFTERTHOUGHT:
I'm listening to a flock of geese flying over my house, headed south for the winter. See you in the springtime, kids!
posted by Tom Degan @ 7:37 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I would have wished you a Merry Christmas Tom but Salon’s politics writer Amanda Marcott claims ‘Merry Christmas!’ Is Conservative Code For ‘F*ck You!’
Go figure.
Dear Tom,
I wish you a Happy Christmas from the UK and my sincere thanks for your posts in 2019. They are in turn thought provoking, informative, entertaining, and also alarming and depressing (no fault of yours - blame the content).
It's going to be an interesting 2020!
The MAGAts are dreaming of a white Christmas, and a white nation.
Trump Cultist Dan Bongino tweeted his million and half racists the intent behind their “Merry Christmas" as a big “F. You” .
“Be sure to own the libs today and respond “MERRY CHRISTMAS” to all of the little lib snowflakes
It’s small, but wonderful, triggering mechanisms such as this which will make the world a better place. MERRY CHRISTMAS libs! Now go back to the basement and cry it out.”
This is what white nationalist fake Christianity does.
So yeah. Merry Christmas, Vern.
Good good, Dave, let the hate flow through you. I want to wish YOU A VERY Special Merry Christmas. And a White Christmas as well.
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