Ba Hum Bug

What is so great about Christmas,
Marcel would like to know?
Seems like a lot of trouble for no good reason.
Hrumph.

And WHO has the time to send out cards that arrive on time? Marcel is sure that HE does not!
His webbed fingers have better things to do, such as twiddling and rudely gesticulating.


The snow is nice but the slobbering beast is not.
It seems as though the creature gets pinker and wigglier every day!

Marcel will be spending the remainder of the holidays atop the Christmas tree where he can remain unmolested and Xmas-free.

BA HUM BUG, indeed!

Happy Christmas Your Arse

It was Christmas Eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me, won't see another one
And then he sang a song
The Rare Old Mountain Dew
I turned my face away
And dreamed about you

Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I've got a feeling This year's for me and you
So happy Christmas
I love you baby I can see a better time
When all our dreams come true

When I think of my favorite Christmas songs, The Pogues Fairytale of New York is at the top of my list. It is the sort of bittersweet song that properly captures the Christmas spirit in all its shades of gray.

Says wonderful Wikipedia, "The song features two Irish immigrants, lovers or ex-lovers, their youthful hopes all but crushed by alcoholism and drug addiction, reminiscing and bickering on Christmas Eve in New York City. MacColl's melodious singing contrasts with the harsh sound of MacGowan's voice and the lyrics which are sometimes bittersweet, sometimes plain bitter":

You're a bum
You're a punk
You're an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it's our last

Yes, yes, I know that this does not sound like much of a Christmas song but "real" Christmas songs make me want to hurl. This song has all the pain, suffering and cussing that the holidays inspire in those of us sick to death of sickly sweet cornball Christmas mush. And underneath the waves of heartbreak and crushed dreams, there is a glimmer of hope which seems impossible to snuff out completely:

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can't make it all alone
I've built my dreams around you

Embedded below is a live version of the song from 1988, complete with fake snow. You can also check out the music video here.

You gotta love Shane in all his toothless, piss drunk glory, especially since he still manages to hit every note and snarl with pitch-perfect perfection. Kirsty seems a bit wooden and nervous but that is part of her charm.

Sadly, Kirsty was killed by a motorboat in 2000 while pushing her son to safety. She will be sorely missed. Said former Pogues vocalist and guitarist Phil Chevron about Kirsty:

"Ummistakably, the tour bus was a classier joint with her on board," Chevron writes. "She shared our insatiable musical curiosity and our appetite for hair-brained schemes. A folk-punk opera, or an all-Pogue recording of West Side Story."

So in Kirsty's honor, let's all drunkenly sing along to, The Fairytale of New York:

Chunky Pam's XMas

This video will make you hungry:

Myles' Merry Xmas

Merry Christmas from 19 yr old Myles, a prolific British video blogger:



When I was 18 yrs old and at The University of East Anglia in Norwich (south of London), I lived in the dorms and shared a hallway with a British boy named Miles Davis. He was white and did not like jazz music.

He was, however, a sloppy drunk and a bit of a perv. He would knock on my door late at night and beg to come in to tell me about his relationship woes with Sunshine, the American bird who also lived on our hall.

Out of all those drunken British boys and American girls that I shared a hallway with, Miles Davis was my favorite. This story has absolutely nothing to do with Myles' Christmas video blog. But what can I say, one cute as pie teenage Brit inspires memories of another hot little British smart ass.

3GinaB XMas Video

I love these British girls, really I do. I wish they worked in The Offasty!

IT SNOWED!

“And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow,
stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so?
It came without ribbons. It came without tags.
It came without packages, boxes or bags.
And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before.
What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store.
What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” Dr. Seuss

Sigh.
It seems there will be no white Xmas for us this year...or will there be?

FINALLY! It snowed again! It was so exciting to peer out the window this morning to see, YES, a thin layer of snow covering the ground. I was even pleased to scrape my car windows!

By the time I got to work and finished our marathon staff meeting (my last one!), the thin layer of snow on the ground had melted already. NOOOOO!!!

Hours later, I glanced up to see little white flecks falling from the sky. FINALLY! More snow! Maybe there was hope after all!? Moments later a thick flurry had begun. I shouted to Suzanne to come and watch.

Mini-snowstorms are better than TV. It was mesmerizing watching the fatties shoot haphazardly every which way and the air was thick with powder. In the end, I couldn't resist running outside to dance around. That is what snow does to you, transforms you into a happy little kid excited by the simple things.

Moments later, the snow stopped and the air cleared. It is almost like the snow is playing hard to get, tantalizing us with little appearances but holding back the big guns for later.

What a naughty little minx! What a tease! A FLIRT! Well winter, you have wet my appetite and all I can say is, BRING IT ON!

“Sex is like snow, you never know how many inches you're going to get or how long it will last”

“The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.” Joseph Wood Krutch