Month: February 2017

I was watching the movie Deadpool the other day.  Although incredibly graphic both visually and verbally, I consider it a modern day classic.  The humor is woven in and balanced brilliantly throughout.  One of the funnier running themes is Wade Wilson’s (Deadpool’s real name as played by Ryan Reynolds) love of the pop group Wham!.  While I truly appreciate the talents of Wham!, which really means the talents of George Michael, I’ve had a 32-year old bone to pick with the recently departed legend.  When Christmas-time rolls around again, and with George not around to worry about it, I’m hoping one of the great injustices of our time will finally be righted.

Of course, I’m talking about the perennial lie that George Michael’s “Last Christmas” is a Christmas song.  A lie so great, mind you, that not only is it considered a Christmas song…aside from Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, it is probably the most played Christmas song in the world.  Well I am here to shed light on this travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham (the only decent Woody Allen line that doesn’t require 3 decades of living in Manhattan to appreciate).

All the song has going for it (from a seasonal-specific standpoint) is that it mentions December 25^th as the date when a very non Christmas-y thing happened.  That doesn’t count!  Let’s look at another calendar-conscious song.  When you sit around with your friends and debate the greatest Autumnal Equinox song ever recorded, I’m sure you don’t consider “September”, the song that has Earth, Wind, and Fire dancing the night away. Yow!  Of course not.  September 21^st (Autumnal Equinox Eve for those of you playing at home) just happened to be the night for chasing the clouds away. Yow!

Here’s a quick mid-post Insignificant Trivia Question:  What is the greatest Vernal Equinox song ever recorded?  Please.  Like it could be anything other than Age of Aquarius by The 5^th Dimension.  And a belated thank you needs to go out to Marilyn McCoo et al for explaining once and for all what happens in March every 25,800 years.

Last Christmas, da da da da da.  The very next day, da da da da da.  Ok, back to the original point.  Looking at it a different way, simply mentioning a holiday does not automatically attach it to that holiday.  If that was the case, George could have made an entire album called “Songs For Every Holiday”, sang Last Christmas over and over again, and simply replaced the word Christmas with Easter, Dyngus Day, Halloween, and every other major holiday out there.  George made that incredibly easy to do by not bothering to rhyme the word Christmas with anything.  Was it that implausible, George, for you to break up on an Isthmus?  It almost makes me want to call for a complete and formal removal of the previously earned exclamation point at the end of “Wham!”…Almost.

So please everybody, when you make those calls to your local DJ starting the day after Thanksgiving, request a true blue Christmas song like Springsteen’s version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.  Or the absolute best Christmas song ever, the Johnny Cash version of The Little Drummer Boy.  The man was so cool he paid others to sing “Pa rum pum pum pum” for him.

You’ll be glad you did. Yow!

RIP George Michael: 1963-2016

Wham: 1981 – 1984

Wham!: 1984 – 1986

Insignificant Trivia Question: What is the name of Marilyn McCoo’s husband, who just happened to double as her singing partner after the 5th Dimension broke up?

I hoped writing would help me deal with what the heck is going on.  It has helped to a great degree, but there looks to be no end to the civil unrest on display and egged on for whatever gains.  Instead of leaving well enough alone, I’ve decided to double down on my efforts to calm the cat fight taking place in the pit of my stomach.

I typically don’t sweat the day-to-day goings on outside my little universe, but you can’t help but do so with what is happening in the USA and around the world.  I can barely keep up when there’s two sides to an issue.  Now there’s just short of a kajillion sides to this particular issue the last I counted.  All claiming they are right.  All wanting…actually I have no clue what anyone wants.  That part never seems to be discussed logically ahead of time.  The only thing I’m sure of is Person A wants exactly the opposite of what Person B wants.

So if it pleases the court, I offer up this meme of Captain Jack Sparrow as some of the soundest logic EVER.

As I was looking at the meme, it dawned on me – Everyone Is Crazy…in a good way…actually in the best way possible.  All you have to do is admit it.  Admission of crazy helps eliminate the crap.  Eliminates the caveats.  It would be “Love Trumps Hate”.  Not the current “Love Trumps Hate, so start loving my views or I will boycott everyone and everything you ever cared about.”  It would be “All Lives Matter”.  Not the current “All Lives Matter, except refugees heading my direction, death row inmates, and basically everyone with an opposing view that I don’t need to make my Starbucks”.  In a nutshell, it helps people practice what they preach.

Crazy does all this by allowing you to take that all-important step back.  You look before you leap.  You see above the fray.  You say nothing at all if you can’t say something nice.  Crazy makes it easier to see both sides of every story, no matter how unpleasant it may seem.  Crazy allows you to understand it’s alright to disagree.  It’s fine if there isn’t one universal right answer to every question.  There’s Sweet AND Savory.  There’s Coffee AND Tea.  There’s Country AND Western.

Trouble only rears its ugly head when people think they’re not crazy (see Politicians, The Media, Religious Literalists, Actors, etc.).  Common Sense goes right out the window.  Self-Importance rises to unimaginable heights.  The laws of physics themself seem to break down.  When opposing groups of crazy deniers meet, cooler heads rarely prevail.  As sophisticated as everyone thinks they are, these battles at best turn into good ‘ol fashioned school yard name calling contests.  They’ll call each other Commies.  They’ll call each other Elitists.  They’ll call you Crazy.  So beat them to the punch.  Admit you’re crazy and diffuse the whole situation.

Rumors are out there Lady Gaga is going to politicize her Super Bowl performance tonight.  Boy I hope she doesn’t, and it’s not because I don’t like her.  She’s a great performer.  A great singer-songwriter.  One of the best voices in the world.  I hope she doesn’t because it is a classic no-win situation.  Even if she just gets up there and passionately exclaims “water is wet”, the Dry Water Coalition will immediately start boycotting every Wet ‘n Wild in North America.  The People For A Dryer Tomorrow will flood (pun intended) the airwaves with an endless, mindless stream of impassioned soliloquies.

Denying her craziness will all but guarantee that her stance, whatever it is, will fail to start a civil dialogue or anything else productive, no matter what the spin doctors say.  It will more than likely continue the pissing contests which are more popular than Beer Yoga and Beer Church.  It will give over a billion people an excuse to add the word Uppity to the front of her stage name.  No one wants that.

Lady Gaga, please don’t upstage the commercials.  Please don’t upstage the game.  Take your cue from Pink Floyd’s 1979 album “The Wall”.  When did Pink tear down the metaphorical wall that closed him off from the realities of the world for decades?  Not even 5 minutes after he realized he was “over the rainbow” crazy.  The truth set him free and he lived happily ever after.  Or the judge with his face on his butt ate him.  Actually, the ending is not so clear after the wall comes down.

Most importantly, don’t go through with it if for no other reason than tonight I’m going to have an ungodly amount of chips, dips, meats on sticks, and Natty Light in me.  As soon as you get on your high horse, the fully clawed, feral cats already in my stomach will start their royal rumble.  The results won’t be pretty.

You’re better than that. You’re something crazy.

Postscript: Lady Gaga gave one of the best performances in Super Bowl halftime history.  She took the high road, showed patriotism, and just killed it.  So proud of her.