Old saying.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Turns out that this time of year, it's also covered with a glistening blanket of holiday white.
Or, more accurately, black if you subscribe to the whole white hat-good guy/black hat-bad guy paradigm to which a lot of us grew up subscribing.
You may have heard there's a number of previously warmly welcomed traditional songs of the season nominated for blacklisting, these days, owing to one perceived perversion or another.
There's your once upon a time, charming and redeeming Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer...now being ballyhooed for banning because a number of the aforementioned good intention gang see the whole saga as an endorsement of bullying.
A long time nominee, Deck The Halls, shows up again, like those poor rock bands that come thiiiiiis close to getting in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame every year only to miss it by thiiiiis much. The danger in Decking? Well, let's have a pink lady, don we now our "gay" apparel and think about it for a minute.
One of the favorites of my generation is slated for a slot on the no-fly with Santa list. Speaking of the randy, rotund ho, ho, ho himself, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus has the PC Police pursing their lips, pouting out accusations of implied sexuality, not to mention adultery, what with Mommy giving Santa the old smoochie smack-down while Daddy is theoretically nestled all snug in the half empty bed upstairs in Daddy AND Mommy's room.
Santa Baby returns to our countdown of condemnation again this year. Between the salivating for sable, which hits on both slutty and furry in the list of oh, no you didn't's and the sultry request for a yacht, a platinum mine and that '54 convertible which makes us, at first, think of the song as pretty dated until you blue book how much a mint condition '54 would be worth these days, you've got all the makings for some serious dissing and draggin' about how this song is nothing more than an ode to a gold digger.
And let's don't even come near the not very thinly veiled bestiality on display in both Dominick the Donkey and I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas. I mean, come on.... sung by a woman? Hello. I don't hear Johnny Mathis burrowing into the middle of a chorus of burro.
And this year....a new entry in the competition. The pick perversion of the week. Sleazier than a sleigh ride with Louis CK, more corrupting at Christmas than an egg nog filled glass with Bill Cosby........oh, baby.
It's cold outside.
Let's skip the blow by blow (pun kinda intended, truth be told) of why this 75 year old Christmas chestnut is currently being roasted on the open fire of the prohibitionist's pyre and, if the court please, we will stipulate that you could, in fact, take the lyric of that song and with just the right tone, inflection and interpretation, conjure up quite a compelling case that all that's missing is Harvey to make this sucker a full blown tribute to a Weinstein Winter Wonderland.
Or it could just be a flirty ditty from a time when men and women tiptoeing around each other in the dance of seduction didn't involve being paranoid, always taking great care not to inadvertently step on a landmine of political correctness. And, just so we're clear, I'm not naively putting any white gauzy, fifties filter on the point of view here. Of course, these people were trying to get laid. Along with breathing, eating and hydrating, getting laid is the fourth of the four things in life that make life go round. Or, at least, make life continue to exist.
But this piece isn't about determining exactly where to draw the line or just how fine the hair has to be before you can no longer split it with any hope of ending up with anything except two really, really thin hairs.
This child of the 50's who, I freely admit, has more than enough emotional and psychological baggage to pretty much always guarantee some kind of overage charge,has no recollection whatsoever of being traumatized by Mommy swapping spit with Santa, being confused about sexuality because the apparel was gay once a year or feeling anything other than uplifted when Rudolph got the nod from Santa and guided that sleigh that night with that nose so bright.
It really fell into the category of "every dog, or reindeer, has his day". Especially when it comes to bitch slapping the bullies back to the rear of the line. A feeling of vindication I'm hoping, by the way, to witness again very, very, very soon be it from the North Pole or Mar A Lago.
No, it's not about the latching on to these songs and picking the elf poop out of the pepper by the supposed do-gooders that occurs to me as I read the current list of contenders for the crown of Christmas condemnation.
What occurs, or, to be accurate, re-occurs, at the moment is a theory that I've been theorizing for a while now. And not just since Donald arrived with his mile high stack of snafus. This theory dates back, come to think of it, far back as I can remember. At least as far back as that time in life when I realized the innocence period of my life was pretty much over. A time when it was okay for Mommy to smooch Santa, it was festive for the apparel to be gay and if he or she donning was likewise, then, fa la la la la. A time when Rudolph did a Rocky Balboa on those snobby, sorry ass reindeer in the pack, self centered, pampered princesses showed up at holiday time to strut a little and sing about jewelry and mink coats, all in good seasonal fun and didn't show up on the web and the flat screen twenty times a week for no more important a reason than they had decided to name their kid North or Saint; a time when a hula hoop was the holy grail and I could hardly stand the wait.
A time before I knew about blacks having to sit in the back of the bus, gunfire from sixth floor windows in downtown Dallas, brothers, cousins, nephews dying in far away places with strange names like Da Nang and Hanoi; a time before I knew about dreamers dying from being shot on hotel balconies in Memphis and kitchen floors in Los Angeles, before I knew about airliners full of innocent travelers flying head on into New York skyscrapers.
A time before I heard about children being tear gassed...and neo-Nazis being defended as "very fine people"...before I heard what I never ever thought I would hear.....a supposed leader of the nation declaring the free press the "enemy of the people"...and, even more incredulously, the sound of, literally, millions of "patriotic" citizens mindlessly screaming their agreement.......a time before building a wall became more of a priority than even bothering to think anymore about building a bridge.
My theory is this.
When we find ourselves faced with things in life that need to be corrected or fixed or adjusted or even ended....and, for whatever reason, we have neither the resources or the skill-set or the opportunities or the first clue about how to go about correcting or fixing or ending them.
Or the courage to just try.
We go looking for things we can fix.
Whether they need fixing. Or not.
Yeah, boy. Some of those Christmas songs sure do have some questionable lyrics.
We need to get on that.
At the same time, though, there's another song we should probably revisit.
Here's some of the lyrics.
Yeah, my blood's so mad, feels like coagulatin',
I'm sittin' here, just contemplatin',
I can't twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Handful of Senators don't pass legislation,
And marches alone can't bring integration,
When human respect is disintegratin',
This whole crazy world is just too frustratin',
And wraps up like this.
The poundin' of the drums, the pride and disgrace,
You can bury your dead, but don't leave a trace,
Hate your next door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace,
And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
You don't believe we're on the eve of destruction.
Put a pin in that.
We don't have the time, or a clue about how, to buckle down.
So, for now, let's just bundle up.
Cause, baby, it's cold...outside.
No comments:
Post a Comment