BEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER, or ERIC IDLE SPEAKS FOR ME

"You see Santa Claus tonight, you better run, boy! You better run for your liiiiife! Heeheheeheeheheheh!"
-The homespun wisdom of Grandpa Chapman (Will Hare) from SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984).

WARNING: if you're one of those folks who gets caught up in the magic of Christmas, you are strongly advised to give this post a miss.

So it's the day after Thanksgiving and now the nauseating annual Christmas onslaught can begin in earnest. From now until near or after New Year's Day we will be bombarded with a shitstorm of endless annoying Christmas music, seasonal commercials, guys in Santa outfits ringing bells, roving packs of carolers showing up at your door to sing some of the aforementioned annoying Christmas songs at you, and, worst of all, relentless phony cheerfulness being shoved down your throat from the moment you wake until the moment to lay your head on your pillow at the end of the day, only to awaken the next day more of the same. It's a fucking nightmare and I want to punch it right in the fucking face!

A recent seasonal classic to warm the heart.

For the past several years I've attempted to locate and compile "alternative" Christmas music to counteract the full-scale aural Yuletide torture and I've come up with a number of gems ranging from the funny to the irreverent, as well as songs that skip right past any hope of airplay by being incredibly filthy and venomous, many wielding precisely the same sentiments that I hold about the season. Notable examples of this sub-genre include Blowfly's "Jingle Bell Cock," John Valby's "I'll Be Stoned for Christmas," "Merry Christmas I Fucked Your Snowman" by The Showcase Showdown," and Larry the Cable Guy's ultra-short "The First Noel" sendup, "The First Queer Santy Claus" (complete lyrics: "The first queer Santy Claus/Wore red leather chaps/And a pair of white shorty-shorts/With a hole in the butt-crack"), but it wasn't until just last week that I finally found a tune that completely sums up exactly how I've felt about the entire Christmas experience since I was in my early teens.

Eric Idle: apparently on the same page as Yer Bunche.

My lifelong of Monty Python and the six comedy geniuses who drove it is undeniable, but I'm kind of amazed that my new favorite Christmas song would come from none other than Eric Idle (seen above in the classic "Upper Class Twit of the Year" sketch from MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS), a very talented and funny guy but far from my favorite of the lot. Idle turned in many memorable bits for both Python's TV and movie work, especially in the song department, but for some reason he never lit my fire in the way that Graham Chapman or Terry Jones did. But whatever the case, he's responsible for the marvelous "Fuck Christmas," a tune seen performed live on the documentary MONTY PYTHON: ALMOST THE TRUTH (which I'll be getting around to reviewing in a few days). Seriously, this one is sheer perfection for seasonal curmudgeons like Yer Bunche. Here are the lyrics, which should be carved in stone and dropped right in the middle of Rockefeller Center, cracking a huge fissure in the ice rink and toppling the Christmas tree into the depths of the sewer:

FUCK CHRISTMAS (2006) by Eric Idle.

Fuck Christmas!
It's a waste of fucking time
Fuck Santa He's just out to get your dime
Fuck holly and fuck ivy
And fuck all that mistletoe
White-bearded big fat bastards
Ringing bells where e'er you go
And bloated men in shopping malls
All going Ho-Ho-Ho
It's fucking Christmas time again!

Fuck Christmas
It's a fucking Disney show
Fuck reindeer And all that fucking snow
Fuck carols
And fuck Rudolph
And his stupid fucking nose
And fucking sleigh bells tinkling
Everywhere you fucking goes
Fuck stockings and fuck shopping
It just drives us all insane
Go tell the elves
To fuck themselves
It's Christmas time again!

IT WAS A NOROVIRUS CHRISTMAS!!! (or WORST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!)

The mighty Norovirus: definitely not a bunch of Christmas candies arranged into a kicky sorta-elf's hat.

Let's skip the full details of the by now rote litany of how I was tormented by treacly enforced Yuletide "entertainment" that my mother annually tries (and fails) to make me enjoy — this year's electrodes-to-the-nuts being a back-to-back helping of the atrocious Radio City Musical Hall Christmas special on NBC and PBS' Boston Pops "best of" Christmas special, in other words two hours of basically the same songs on repeat with varying levels aggressive cutesiness that actually drove me upstairs into the confines of the living room like a torch wielded by a lederhosen-clad villager against the Frankenstein Monster — and cut straight to the account of how the single most boring Christmas I've ever experienced was accented by both my mom and myself falling victim to a virulent case of the dreaded Norovirus. I first heard of this foul disease by name a little over a month ago when informed of it by Jewish Warrior Princess as it ravaged the U.K., but never did I expect to be one of the legion of victims left throat-volcanoed and ass-blasted in its microscopic-but-powerful wake.

On Christmas Day my mom and I enjoyed a terrific dinner of an exquisite Harrington's smoked ham, mashed potatoes and garlic-sauteed spinach in a delectable Borsin cheese sauce, and about two hours later while seated in front of her new DVD of the first series of THE VICAR OF DIBLEY, mom got an anguished look on her face and announced she had major stomach cramps. I was reading as she mentioned it and I didn't really pay her all that much mind since she can be a bit of a drama queen (in case any of of you wondered where I got it from), but I knew something was up when my food-loving mom leapt from the couch like a kangaroo on Benzedrine and flew to the bathroom. Following the slamming of the door, the sounds of copious and violent projectile vomiting echoed as though occurring right next to me — it was more like eight feet away, really — and the assorted growls, yowls and other preternatural onomatopoeia were so fucking loud that it sounded exactly like a battle between Godzilla and Anguirus taking place for sole territorial dominion over a daikiju-sized thunder-bucket.

Godzilla versus Aguirus...in my bathroom, dude!

This apocalyptic voiding went on for a good two minutes, my mind conjuring up visuals that H.P. Lovecraft wishes he'd come up with, and when my mom wobbled out of the bathroom, sweaty and rather pale-faced — no easy feat since she has a somewhat brick-toned complexion — she collapsed on the couch like a sack of wet cement. From there things proceeded to shivering, more puking and her eventual heading to bed, there to find no sleep but many trips to the can during the course of a long and highly unpleasant night.

I took care of mom as much as one could when faced with an implacable scourge that would be gone in forty-eight hours, feeding her very bland wonton soup from a Chinese takeout place near the Fairfield border until she didn't feel so weak anymore, and attempting to offer some sort of alternative to her MSNBC addiction by way of Animal Planet's usual iffy programming (I also managed to sneak in a viewing of the DEATH RACE re-imagining/remake with my pal Chris, but that's a tale for another post). I stuck around until Saturday afternoon, by which time she was more or less back to normal, and then hopped the insanely crowded Metro North train back to good ol' NYC. As I deposited myself in a seat next to a grotesquely obese kid who could not have been more than eleven years old and whose copious fat pushed the woman sitting next to him (and her minute Yorkie) nearly flat against the dirty window and myself out into the aisle, I settled in and closed my eyes in hope of a brief nap before arriving at Grand Central Station, mildly-R-rated visions of a green-eyed Internet goddess and her big-assed poodle cavorting about in my exhausted imagination...

Then, just before we hit Stamford, the stomach cramps began.

Thankfully I had not eaten a bite since my breakfast at 9AM, so, focusing on staying in a mellow state to control the escalating nausea, I kept my throat sealed for the next fifty minutes — the time it took to get from Stamford to Grand Central, and then from there the R train to the Union Street stop in Brooklyn — and when I walked through the door of my apartment I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience as I seemed to watch someone else in my form throw the deadbolt on my door and apply its chain, carefully place my luggage and prezzies out of the way, shed my clothing, and sit on the edge of the bathtub, where this curious lookalike then began to vomit so painfully and with such force that my perceptions were immediately shocked straight back into my uncontrollably heaving body.

For those of you who don't know me personally, I'm considered a big guy: I'm about 5' 10" to six feet tall (depending on who measures me), I average about 230 pounds and am mostly descended from people who were bred for hardiness and labor, so I can handle a lot physically. But let me tell you in no uncertain terms that in my forty-three years of assorted bugs and food-poisonings the fucking-up I received at the hands of the Norovirus was so bad that I nearly required someone to come and fuck me back down. Usually when confronted with even the most wrathful of viruses I can weather it by staying in bed and watching the TV or chatting on the phone, but this time out my senses were so unpleasantly overloaded that as of roughly 5PM on Saturday I made sure my apartment was as dark as possible and left the TV and stereo off, hoping to achieve what would in effect be the cheapest sensory deprivation tank possible.

What followed was a twenty-four hour period of shivering/sweltering and getting out of bed nearly every hour on the hour to expel waste from both of my tortured ends, eventually reducing the puking to nothing while the literally liquid "number 2" required the donning of undies "just in case" (and if truth be told, it was a very wise move). I made it clear to all my usual everyday contacts and cronies that I was ill and did not want to be disturbed for any reason until I advised them otherwise — all save JWP, of course — and they were kind enough to respect that, which was a good thing because by the end of the first twenty-four hours my sleep cycle was so out of whack that I had no idea if it was day or night, my existence having been altered to that of an explosively expectorating human cuckoo clock whose hourly appearances in no way bore the cute tones of the bird such devices are named for.

Hours twenty-five through forty-eight consisted of greatly-lessened trips to the now much-abused commode, several showers to wash away the sweat and other accumulated no-fun effluvium, watching episodes of SOUTH PARK I hadn't seen — "The Biggest Douche in the Universe" making me laugh and excrete at the same time, and I wasn't a bit mad about it; hey, sometimes in situations of helplessness you just have to accept the inevitable — , the Rifftrax versions of the horrendous WICKER MAN remake and the nauseating romance (among many, many other terrible elements) of STAR WARS-EPISODE II: ATTACK OF THE CLONES, both of which allowed me to briefly nap or hit the can as I found each necessary, and finally briefly rousing myself enough to take one final shower and get dressed (to say nothing of dropping off my bedding at the cleaners). I called mom to assure her I had survived, then I spoke with JWP before catching a bit of the Sunday night Fox network "Animation Domination" lineup and trying to sleep for a few solid hours at a time. By bedtime I felt I was more or less okay, but nonetheless opted to give work a miss and take it easy for one more day, which proved to be a good idea when I awoke at 2:30AM to talk to Chuck on the big white phone once again.

Monday morning I called in sick and allowed my aches and pains to die down, aided by yet more Rifftrax and the tawdry spectacle of THE MAURY POVICH SHOW, finally gathering the strength to once more leave the Vault and pick up some minor groceries. I was ravenous by the mid-afternoon so I stewed some chicken in a broth and cooked some basmati rice in it so the chicken flavor would be wholly infused, and starved though I was all I could manage was half a small bowl of the stuff, but to me it tasted like ambrosia straight from Mount Olympus. Secure in the knowledge that I was fully on the mend I went to bed, lulled to sleep by the Riff Trax skewering of 300, a film that seems even more bizarre and dreamlike when you're coming off of two days of reality-altering, bi-directional spewage.

But then, SURPRISE!!! I awoke bolt upright at 2AM to perch on my bathtub's edge once again and stare down into the Toilet Duck-cleansed maw of that damned manmade porcelain Charybdis, violently heaving up what little nourishment had reached my innards over the past two agonizing days. That dizzying task accomplished, utterly spent, wrung out and naked as the day I entered this miserable world of miserableness, I collapsed atop my thick comforter and my pores began to issue sweat like I was a bizarre novelty lawn sprinkler ("New from Ronco! It's the life-size Sprinkler Spook™! Just in time for Spring!"), flushing the last of the vile bio-toxins from my flabby, high-yella carcass as I fell into blessed unconsciousness.

Awaking in a more refreshed state than I'd been in for days, I came in to work knowing that it would be one of those classic holiday blowoff days in which a good number of the design 'ho house's staff would likely be out and my coming in would basically amount to me filling a seat for eight hours with little to do. My Christmas at home had been a thudding bore — although minus the usual dysfunctional Olympics, so at least that was something — except for when I was playing Florence Nightengale, and what remained of the weekend was consumed by a relentless microbe with a vicious sense of ballistic timing, but the one thing — the ONE GODDAMNED THING — that kept me going and gave me hope through all of it was knowing that I'd be seeing the Damned, one of my three favorite bands of all time, on New Years Eve...

Well, guess again.

Earlier today I received the following from an anonymous Vault-reader and double-checked it online. It's no cruel hoax:

DECEMBER 30, 2008

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

THE DAMNED FORCED TO POSTPONE NY & NJ APPEARANCES

Due to severe illness, The Damned will not be able to complete the North American dates of their world tour. The New year's Eve show at the Blender Theater at Gramercy and the January 2nd show at Asbury Park's Wonder Bar have been canceled. Refunds are available at point of purchase.

Since October, The Damned have been on tour throughout the US and UK in support of their latest album, So, Who’s Paranoid?, which was released in the United States on December 12.

At this time, the band wishes to extend their apologies to their fans and look to reschedule shows soon.

A publicist's number was included for further inquiries and I called to see if the tickets could be used when the band rescheduled, but the very nice publicist advised me to just get my money back because there was no way of knowing when the band would be back in the States.

With that blow, coupled with the aftereffects of the Norovirus — which is what the Damned have; I made sure to ask — and my state of mind in general following Christmas I'm just going to try and have as mellow of a New Year's Eve as possible. I'm going to retire to the Vault with a stack of DVDs and just say "fuck it all." Here's to 2009 being an improvement on this wretched year, and to the Yuletide of 2008, a time that may just live on in my memories as the WORST CHRISTMAS EVER!!!

The Damned on New Year's Eve... DENIED!!!

HAPPY KWANZAA?

NOTE: this one's from last year, but I still stand by the sentiment. I know it's a rerun but it's okay to cheat during the holidays, sez me.

Okay, I have to ask: am I the only black guy who thinks Kwanzaa is a load of bullshit? Today's the first day of that annual celebration, and I just ain't feelin' it. Never did.

By way of explanation as to exactly what Kwanzaa's supposed to be, here's an excerpt from the good old Wikipedia:

Kwanzaa (or Kwaanza) is a week-long Pan-African festival celebrated primarily in the United States, honoring African American heritage. It is observed from December 26 to January 1 each year. Kwanzaa consists of seven days of celebration, featuring activities such as candle-lighting and pouring of libations, and culminating in a feast and gift giving. It was created by Ron Karenga, and first celebrated from December 26, 1966, to January 1, 1967, timed to coincide with Christmas so that it would be remembered. Karenga calls Kwanzaa the African American branch of "first fruits" celebrations of classical African cultures.

Karenga created Kwanzaa in 1966. Karenga said his goal was to "...give a Black alternative to the existing holiday and give Blacks an opportunity to celebrate themselves and history, rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society." The name Kwanzaa derives from the Swahili phrase "matunda ya kwanza", meaning "first fruits". The choice of Swahili, an East African language, reflects its status as a symbol of Pan-Africanism, especially in the 1960s, though most African-Americans have West African ancestry.

The official stance on the spelling of the holiday is that an additional "a" was added to "Kwanza" so that the word would have seven letters. The name was meant to have a letter for each of what Karenga called "The Seven Principles". Another explanation is that Karenga added the extra "a" to distinguish the African-American meaning from the African one. Kwanzaa is also sometimes incorrectly spelled "kwaanza".

Kwanzaa is a celebration that has its roots in the black nationalist movement of the 1960s, and was established as a means to help African Americans reconnect with their African cultural and historical heritage by uniting in meditation and study of "African traditions" and "common humanist principles."

In 1967, a year after Karenga proposed this new holiday, he publicly espoused the view that "Jesus was psychotic" and that Christianity was a white religion that blacks should shun. However, as Kwanzaa gained mainstream adherents, Karenga altered his position so as not to alienate practicing Christians, then stating in the 1997 Kwanzaa: A Celebration of Family, Community, and Culture, "Kwanzaa was not created to give people an alternative to their own religion or religious holiday."

So now you get the idea. (And you've got to give that Karenga dude points for the unintentionally hilarious "Jesus was psychotic" statement; makes John Lennon's "We're more popular than Jesus" pale in comparison, no?)

I dunno, the whole thing strikes me as an attempt to manufacture a connection to aspects of African culture that we, as American-born blacks, have no bond with save for our genetics (and even our genetics have been considerably mongrelized since we the day our ancestors first got here, making for too-sexy critters like meself) so why not instead come up with a celebration of our own thing, an American thing that recognizes the contributions that black American influences have made not only in this fair land's melting pot culture, but to that of the entire globe? (And don't hand me that "African-American" horseshit either; I am not African, I am an American. I was born here, I believe in the concept of a pan-ethnic society, and even though it doesn't always work I staunchly support the intent.)

And as for the "Seven Principles," they're all well and good in and of themselves and are an admirable list around which to found a philosophy:

1. Umoja (Unity) To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation and race.
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination) To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.
3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility) To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers' and sisters' problems our problems and to solve them together.
4. Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics) To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.
5. Nia (Purpose) To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
6. Kuumba (Creativity) To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
7. Imani (Faith) To believe with all our heart in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.

Having read and absorbed all of that I have to say that this list has very little to do with what I see happening in some realms of black American society. All seven principles fall by the wayside for me when I see blacks being our own worst enemy (don't forget who really allowed the slave trade to flourish on the African end of things), what with the staggering lack of focus on the family as a unit, the appalling dissemination of thug culture and behavior that was once known as "coonish," a focus on personal material gain and bling-bling rather than a concerted push for education and the arts... My list goes on and on, while the list of the Seven Principles is quite clear and concise in what it puts out there. If Kwanzaa is to have any real meaning for anyone, keep those precepts in mind year-round, and not just for a week.

Oh well, at least it's not technically a "religious" thing. And while I'm not down with much of the whole Kwanzaa thing, I do love me some Kwanzaabot.

Kwanzaabot (voiced by Coolio) and Bender Rodriguez, from FUTURAMA.

MERRY CHRISTMESS 2008!!!

To all my dear readers-

have a most metal-licious Christmas and don't drive drunk.

-love,
Yer Bunche

HO-HO-HO: THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF CHRISTMAS PORNOGRAPHY

It's often been said that if you've thought of it, someone has made a porno about it, so does it come as any kind of a surprise to know that Christmas-related porn exists? Here's a sampling of that rarified genre, and I assure you all of it, including the written "plot" synopses culled from the packaging, is 100% the real thing.

This one was inevitable simply because of the title:

It's a Christmas tale with a true sense of giving. When Santa needs help delivering his gifts, the hottest babes come to fill his stockings. They're ready and willing to trim your tree, but just remember they want more than milk and cookies.

For those of you who protest the self-mutilating silicone route:

This holiday-themed homage to the petite rack features five gals who've had the good sense to stay away from the knife. In four festive scenes of Christmas debauchery, the compact gals get reamed by Santa and a leiderhosen-clad elf. Everyone is dressed like they should be adorning a department-store window. In the first scene, Angela Faith dreams of a Christmas boob-job, only to be rebuffed by Santa, who is dropped out of the sky by his reindeer to announce that he loves itty bitty titties. His red trousers fall to the ground to reveal a merry boner which he rams up the flat gal's rear end. Oh cum, all ye faithful!

Here's a little something for all the chubby-chasers out there:

Mommy gave Santa head and chugged down his milk. Then, Santa spread the joy like he spread her ass cheeks. Watch these hefty mommas rock the jingle bells!

One of the greatest titles ever:

Please Santa, cum down my chimney, All I Want For Christmas Is A Gang Bang! These Santas should be ringing bells outside the mall but instead they are ganging up and ringing the bells of these hot chicks. See these Santas put their North Poles in every hole these chicks have, now thats a present! So much cum you'll swear it's snowing.

Man, do I wish I'd thought up that last line!

This next one's nothing special, but the ad copy is worth a cheap giggle:

This Christmas Jessi Summers is unwrapping your package. This cum guzzlin' feature is packed with Santa's cock helpers sharing loads. We're taking it to the extreme for you perverts to spank your meat to.

And my favorite of the lot, THE TITS THAT SAVED XXX-MAS!

Like a live-action Rankin/Bass special gone horribly wrong, this one takes the oft-revisited plot of Santa needing help to save Christmas for whatever reason as its launching point, only I think the motivating factor here sure beats the living shit out of any of that Heat Miser and Snow Miser showtunes foofery. And how do you make the task of saving Christmas even more of a noble cause? By adding lots of tits, that's how! Where the hell was this special when I needed it during puberty? I can't answer that, but I'll see if this turns up in the Port Authority area's cutout bins after the New Year. Here's the synopsis:

'Twas the night before Christmas and panic reigns supreme at the North Pole! The magic is gone and unable to get his sleigh off the ground, Santa is about to cancel the world's favorite holiday. Lo and behold, luscious Mrs. Claus has an answer, but to perform a miracle she needs help from her husband's horny little helpers. Chloe Dior, Rebecca Love, Kiki D'aire and Ava Divine (as Mrs. Claus) star in this holiday romp. Curl up in front of the fire with four gorgeous, busty stars as they show you the difference between naughty and nice!

"And to all a good night," indeed!

CHRISTMESS EVIL, 2008

"God-DAMN, Santa's raw flesh tasted great!!!"

Looks like it's that time of year again (as if the incessant Christmas music, commercials and out-to-guilt-you beggars weren't enough of a clue), and Yer Bunche is gearing up to survive the next few days. I'll be up about an hour north at my mom's house in Connecticut and I'm hashing out my game plan:

• Leave work in time to make the train from Grand Central that'll put me off in my hometown of Westport, Ct. no later than 5PM.
• Gather as many friends as possible from my growing-up years and spend Christmas Eve either at the movies seeing the reportedly ultra-violent and extra-stupid PUNISHER: WAR ZONE, or at home running a holiday-themed DVD mini-marathon featuring a lineup pulled together from such Yuletide heart-warmers as BLACKADDER'S CHRISTMAS CAROL, SANTA'S SLAY, BAD SANTA, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, CHRISTMAS EVIL and the timeless SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT, all while my mom is out at midnight mass.
• Find ways to amuse myself for the remainder of my stay in Connecticut that will involve more than driving aimlessly around Fairfield County looking for something to do or sitting in front of the TV from the moment I rise until the moment my head hits the pillow.
• See both THE WRESTLER and GRAN TORINO on the big screen.
• Figure ot some New Year's resolutions that I will actually live by.
• Finally get my mom to see CARRIE (it's already a done deal, provided we watch it during the daytime).
• Drop by the Dairy King on Route 7 and chow down on their wondrous foot-long chili dogs, after which I'll trot across the street to Superior Oriental and see if they have a nice pair of octagonal Cocobolo-wood nunchaku. (I haven't bought a new pair of 'chuks in almost two decades and the ones I have are getting pretty worn out.)
  

That's what I've got going on so far, and it's by no means set in stone. Hope I get some good stuff this year...

THIS YEAR'S HOLIDAY CARDS

Every year I receive a number of seasonal greetings from friends and former colleagues in the comics biz, and 2008 proves to be no exception.

First up comes this terrific Frankenstein by Declan "the Mad Irishman" Shalvey, the illustrator of FRANKENSTEIN: THE GRAPHIC NOVEL. A great bloke and a talented illustrator, I can't wait to see Declan again when next he hauls his ass over here from Ireland, hopefully for February's New York Comicon hoo-haa.

This next one's from Greg Schigiel, a former Marvelite whose then-loose & doodly (and very charming) style has evolved considerably:

Rocking the serious horror, as is their much-appreciated wont, this heart-warming family portrait comes from Mike Lackey — former marvel Comics editor and star of the cult favorite STREET TRASH (1987) — and Anne O'Brien, two like-minded loons I need to reconnect with in a big way:

Here's this year's entry from Michael Golden and Renee Witterstaetter at the Eva Ink Artist Group (make sure to click on it to see all the detail at a larger size):

And rounding out this mini-gallery comes this one from Rick Veitch, one of my favorite comics creators who rocked hard on many titles including RARE BIT FIENDS, SWAMP THING, BRAT PACK, THE MAXIMORTAL, the vastly underrated CAN'T GET NO and the often laugh-out-loud funny (to me anyway) ARMY @ LOVE:
So keep 'em comin', folks!

THINGS TO PONDER REGARDING A SEASONAL CLASSIC

Santa and Jessica read the script to their own special and are stunned by a budding stoner's interpretation of it.

One of the most cherished of the Rankin/Bass stop-motion animated holiday television specials is 1970's SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN' TO TOWN, the first of two such specials to detail the origin of the jolly spirit of gift-giving (the other being the seldom-seen and rather pagan THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF SANTA CLAUS), and I try to catch it each year when it runs. I missed it this go-round but I recently received an email from Lori, a friend from early in my misspent college years, that featured a Christmas card I made for her back in 1984 featuring some stuff I noticed about SANTA CLAUS IS COMIN' TO TOWN when seen from the point of view of a nineteen-year-old who had escaped the constrictive nest and had begun seriously sampling some of life's more questionable diversions. In other words, I saw Santa as kind of a conuter-culture stoner hero, and here are my observations of twenty-four Christmases past:

• Santa was an abandoned child (Was he illegitimate? Who were his parents?)
• He was raised at a matriarchal commune of elves in the middle of nowhere
• He was labeled as a hippie-type because of his “outlandish” clothes
• He gave away toys he made by hand (good ol' stoner creativity)
• He hung out with a penguin who wore a Doctor Who scarf (rather trippy)
• He could dance (as evidenced by his fancy footwork during “Put One Foot In Front of the Other”)
• He knew magic
• He had a gorgeous, curvy redhead for a girlfriend
• Said girlfriend never wore a coat in the snow, so you knew she was a hot woman
• He opposed an oppressive fascist state
• He was arrested for acts of sedition
• He’s an escaped criminal who was considered public enemy #1
• He gave drugs to reindeer
• He was forced to live undercover
• His disguise made him look sorta like Jerry Garcia

Not exactly comedy gold, but cut me some slack. It was twenty-four years ago.

HAPPY חנוכה TO RED SEA PEDESTRIANS EVERYWHERE !!!

As I write this it's not even noon here in beautiful Park Slope, Brooklyn, but in some places in the world it's sundown or later, so Happy Hanukkah to Red Sea Pedestrians everywhere! But my seasonal greeting is meant most especially to all Vault readers who celebrate the holiday, and Jewish Warrior Princess, a group and an individual without whom my life would be much poorer.

And some of you may be asking "Why the hell does Bunche have an image of Ben Grimm, the Thing out of the Fantastic Four, on a Hanukkah post?" What? You didn't know Ben's one of the Chosen? Read more comics, damn yer eyes! (I know there are those of you who favor Kitty Pryde as the Jewish superhero of choice, but if that's the case you just ain't read enough about Ben.)

FIRST I WENT HOME FOR THANKSGIVING, AND THEN THIS HAPPENED

“Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?”
-Johnny Rotten

Yer Bunche is weary, dear readers, in both body and spirit after the usual Thanksgiving dysfunction. This year's anti-excitement included being stuck in Westport from Wednesday evening through Saturday afternoon — admittedly shorter than the usual duration — with my mom's TV locked on either MSNBC or that fucking Macy's parade (which did surprise the living shit out of me by hauling Rick Astley out of the pop music sepulchre to lip-synch; how bad is it when a show actually makes me glad to see motherfucking Rick Astley?!!?), no friends coming over except for an all-too-brief appearance by my buddy Chris and no decent marathons of old movies or vintage television to lend me some distraction from the soul-freezing inertia of being in my growing-up place, a la-la land of privilege and a certain disconnect with general reality. The one thing — the ONE THING — that got me through the first section of the seasonal surrendering of my autonomy was the knowledge that on Saturday night I’d finally get to see as rarer-than-tits-on-a-fish screening of URGH! A MUSIC WAR, the multi-band documentary cornucopia of bizarre music from my fucked-up adolescence that kind of served as a de facto soundtrack to the unsung and utterly mundane non-epic of high school hell. I went to the screening tonight accompanied by a number of good friends, most notably Chris, the only person I know who shares my passion for URGH! A MUSIC WAR with equal fervor, and we were all stoked to witness the madness unspool.

Well, lemme tell ya that I’m beyond pissed off about the screening because the thirty-four-band documentary was shorn of ten (!!!) of the performances, reducing the film to a mere ninety-three minutes and leaving myself and Chris feeling distinctly ripped off. With no indication that the print was not complete, the film played out and I did the tally in my head and noted that the movie was minus the following bits:

• John Cooper Clarke’s “Health Fanatic”
• “I’m On Fire” by Chelsea (the omission of which was particularly disheartening to Chris)
• “Where’s Captain Kirk?” by Athletico Spizz ’80 (another omission that kicked Chris square in the taint)
• The excellent “Model Worker” by Magazine
• “Offshore Banking Business” by the Members
• “Valium” by the ultra-obscure Invisible Sex, the omission of which only compounds the band’s status as being almost completely unknown
• “Birdies” by Pere Ubu
• John Otway’s wrenching performance of “Cheryl’s Going Home,” something I would have loved to see on the (relatively) big screen
• “Sign of the Cross” by Skafish, definitely the missing sequence whose omission most irked Yer Bunche because it’s fun, humorously blasphemous, introduces a new (and ludicrous) dance craze and allows the cornea-wiltingly ugly visage of frontman Jim Skafish to be emblazoned large in projected form
• Splodgenessabounds’ lively cover of Rolf Harris’ “Two Little Boys”

That’s about a full third of the movie gone to who knows where, and insult was added to injury when the end credits rolled and every one of the missing bands were listed, much to the confusion of those who didn’t have multiple uncut viewings of URGH! under their belts like Chris and myself (we’ve both seen it countless times since the Spring of 1986 when I got it on tape from WTBS’ late, lamented NIGHT FLIGHT). What began as an evening at the movies with a grin plastered from ear to ear swiftly degenerated into a huge buzz kill that not even Devo’s “Uncontrollable Urge” could assuage, and I really kick myself for opting to see a truncated version of my favorite concert movie when I had a done-deal bit of quality time with a recently re-connected old flame in the offing. There were a few good reasons for me passing up that bit of fun, but the fact remains that I could have enjoyed the wonder of that which is pink but didn’t proving yet again that I am more than a bit of an idiot.

Bottom line: if URGH! A MUSIC WAR is making the rounds to movie houses across the nation, be forewarned that you should call the theater and find out its running time before you go. If it’s the ninety-three minute flaying that I saw, rather than the two-hours-plus whole real deal, bail immediately.

God damn it, I missed sex for this! Stupid, stupid, stupid!!!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM THE VAULT OF BUNCHENESS!!!

NOTE TO LONGTIME READERS: since last year's piece on Turkey Day pretty much summed up my take on the whole thing rather nicely, I'm rerunning it this year for those who may have missed it the first time around. Enjoy your festival of drunkenness and family dysfunction wherever you may be, and keep in mind that it will all be over soon!

-Yer Bunche, keeper of the Vault of Buncheness

Some words of holiday advice:

1. You can survive your fucking annoying family. And if they piss you off too much, just remember that one day they will be dead.

2. Don't drink and drive, 'cause that shit's for amateurs and assholes. Stay at home to tie one on; why do you think Thanksgiving's an all-day festival of football, parades, movies, dog shows and marathons of classic TV reruns? It's a dazzling cathode ray cornucopia of stuff to keep the wasted off the streets and at home, puking, fucking and fighting right where they belong.

3. When seeing your old high school pals for what's probably the one time you'll see them all year, do not comment on how fat and/or old they look. That shit goes two ways, bunky...

4. If you must go to church during the holiday, make sure to go as hungover and reeking of booze as possible, that way next year they'll think twice before forcing you out of bed and into a place choked with incense and festooned with pictures of Jesus looking at your ass.

5. If your family gathering has a kiddie table, make sure to sit there and serve as a bad example to the next generation. Tell age-acceptable off-color jokes and stories. Teach the kids the lyrics to "The Diarrhea Song" and have them sing it loudly halfway through the meal. Introduce them to "pull my finger." In short, do your part to ensure your status as the fave older relative from the start; that way the kids won't feel so awkward in later years when they need somebody to take them to get an abortion or bail them out of jail without their parents being any the wiser. And believe me, they will pay back your "cool relative" kindness somewhere down the line.

6. Always, ALWAYS eat the turkey's tail. It's the perfect amount of dark meat, fat, and skin in one concentrated morsel, and if slathered with the right amount of gravy it's a thing of joy forever (well, at least until it's digested and re-manifests itself as the next morning's enormous post-Turkey Day turd).

7. The true bombardment of Christmas-themed TV commercials commences right around Thanksgiving, so feel free to let loose with the Ribald Songbird action and desecrate the classic Yuletide tunes that have already been corrupted for TV adverts, only make them super dirty with usages of words like "cocksucker," "shit," and "pussy fart." Since you're gonna hear them a million times between now and the new year anyway, you may as well have some fun with them.

8. If you have to suffer through the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade — the Thanksgiving moment I dread most — don't try to be an asshole and bring to your aging parents' attention the fact that it's nothing more than a saccharine, three-hour commercial. They like it for the marching bands, big-assed balloons, and celebs lip-synching, and do not give a fuck about it's true purpose, so let them have their fun. And you can always have something to look forward to, namely the hope that the guy playing Santa at the end of the show will either be drunk or have a visible hard-on.

9. If you're staying at your parents' house with a significant other, try to remain as silent as possible if having sex under your folks' roof. I don't know why, but the idea of their kids having sex, even us grownup kids, seriously fucks with the heads of our progenitors. Then again, maybe you should fuck like monkeys on crack while at home...Aah, what the hell? Make 'em remember how it's done! And if they bitch about it, remind them of all the times they nagged you for grandkids and ask them if they forgot where said grandkids come from. That'll shut the geezers up in no time.

10. If the friends and loved ones you miss most can't be there this year, think of them fondly and rest assured that they're probably every bit as miserable as you are.

And with that, Happy Thanksgiving, and may the pecans in grandma's cookies actually be pecans and not roaches. (She doesn't see that well anymore, you know.)

AND NOW A WORD FROM WEDNESDAY ADDAMS

Here's Yer Bunche's all-time favorite Thanksgiving moment in movie history (although the trailer for THANKSGIVING in GRINDHOUSE comes in at a close second place):

We cannot break bread with you. You have taken the land which is rightfully ours. Years from now my people will be forced to live in mobile homes on reservations. Your people will wear cardigans, and drink highballs. We will sell our bracelets by the road sides, you will play golf, and enjoy hot hors d'oeuvres. My people will have pain and degradation. Your people will have stick shifts. The gods of my tribe have spoken. They have said, "Do not trust the Pilgrims."

-Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci) as Pocahontas in ADDAMS FAMILY VALUES (1993)