Once again, Google unlocks a mystery of my childhood. I remembered seeing this weird-as-fuck Christmas special when I was a kid and after a little Googling, I found the title: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. I mainly remembered that creepy "IMMORTALITY, IMMORTALITY" chant that the immortal tribal whatever council continually intoned in that faux-Gregorian chant style, but Jesus Christ, read the fucking plot synopsis of this thing. This council of immortal tribal whatevers has to decide whether Santa Claus should die or be granted eternal life (WTF THIS IS A KIDS SHOW ENOUGH WITH THE EXISTENTIAL DILEMMAS KIERKEGAARD). In the course of explaining this, they show that Santa was initially an abandoned child (his parents murdered by Cossacks before his very eyes, no doubt) raised by a lioness and a fairy (why was Donald Wildmon asleep on the job here?). Santa Claus is motivated to become a giver of toys when one of the immortals shows him (AND THE TELEVISED AUDIENCE) all the miseries and hardship of the world. (Hey kids, people are dying all over the world! Why, your president is sanctioning bloodshed in Central America even as we speak! Little children your age only wish for a end to the unendurable suffering of their lives! Merry Christmas, and back after a word about Mattel's new GI Joe Battle Command Center!) And yes, this ends with a huge battle between the good and evil immortals in which SANTA KILLS HIS ENEMIES. (That explains why Santa's always dressed in red; his clothes were soaked with the blood of the massacred heathen horde. "Ho ho ho, kids, I've got a taste for blood now!") I think the good side won in the end, but the damage to countless childrens' psyches was already done well before that moment. (Also, another site about this special informs me that this thing featured a scene where two puppets make out. WHAT THE FUCK, RANKIN-BASS)
I realize that this is an adaptation of an L. Frank Baum novel, but I can only imagine that this project was spearheaded by some deeply depressed tv executive desperately trying to lash out at a world whose darkness and cruelty mocks and frustrates him. "I know," said the wasted shell of a man. "Let's make an animated Christmas special that spews venom into the sweet, syrupy face of Christmas cheer! A special that mocks everything people hold dear about the holiday season and exposes the sick, morbid core at the heart of our rituals! A special that will warp the fragile young minds of every young child who happens to view it!" And he succeeded. I don't think it's a coincidence that depression, SSRI prescriptions and gothic death fixations spiked exponentially among the youth of America after the broadcast of The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. And even though the special has been banished to the far reaches of basic cable and 4:00 am UHF broadcasts, its horrific legacy continues to this very day. Thanks, Rankin-Bass. Yukon Cornelius weeps in bitter, stop-motion shame from his grave.
Monday, December 20, 2004
Sunday, December 05, 2004
My ten favorite albums this year. (Please note that I'm not counting Brian Wilson's Smile, because it was essentially a 1967 album reconfigured and completed in 2004. But slot it in at #3 if this explanation isn't satisfactory.)
10. RJD2, Since We Last Spoke
In which an entire cutout bin's worth of decades-old musical effluvia is reconfigured into some wonderful musical utopia where stadium rawk, new wave pop, cop show theme music and hip-hop backbeats all coexist in perfect harmony.
9. Comets on Fire, Blue Cathedral
Comets on Fire distill the heavier-than-heavy riffage of early Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, the free jazz stabs of the Stooges' Fun House and the screaming of early grunge pioneers like Mudhoney's Mark Arm into stoner rock par excellence. Ridiculously loud, overwrought, heavy and ass-kickin'.
8. American Music Club, Love Songs for Patriots
Mark Eitzel's best set of songs in eleven years was an unfortunately appropriate soundtrack to America's continued descent into theocratic fundamentalism.
7. Espers
One of the best of this year's wave of psychedelic folk albums, full of gorgeously entrancing harmonies and instrumentation and a hauntingly dark and lonesome edge.
6. Ghostface, The Pretty Toney Album
The officially released version was good enough, but program out the skits and plug in some of best of Ghostface's unclearable mixtape songs and you have one nonstop barrage of classic soul samples and Ghostface's inimitable, shove-six-minutes-of-rhymes-into-three cadence.
5. Oneida, Secret Wars
Oneida draws from the psychkrautgarage well without sounding chained to their influences, investing repetitive drones like "Caesar's Column" and the one-chord bashfest "The Winter Shaker" with hypnotic power. And the epic "Changes in the City" works over one riff to dizzying effect, subtly reshifting a simple theme for over 14 minutes.
4. Destroyer, Your Blues
This, on paper, should not work - a set of songs that sound like the score of a regional theatre musical, built sonically around the fakest synthesized orchestra imaginable and Dan Bejar's quavery nasal voice. But it's a sweepingly grand (and grandiose) work filled with insistently memorable songs and oddly moving performances.
3. Madvillain, Madvillainy
My favorite of the ultraprolific MF Doom's three releases in 2004 - Doom's offhanded brilliance combined with Madlib's endlessly flowing soul/jazz beats and the overall late night/low budget feel made for an endlessly addictive listen.
2. Animal Collective, Sung Tongs
At first, this sounds like a field recording of some back-to-nature hippie cult sect's tribal rituals. It takes a few listens before you realize how ingeniously the songs here are constructed and how insidiously catchy these songs are at their core. A perfect balance of insane inspiration and compositional strength.
1. Fiery Furnaces, Blueberry Boat
I have annoyed everyone I know this year with my unconditional love of this album, so here's one more rave before I let it go already. The mini-epics contained here throw out a dizzying array of melodic ideas spiraling on top of each other and delivered with the enthusiasm and lack of patience of a bunch of ADD-addled kids. There are more brilliant hooks, choruses and throwaway lines here than most bands or performers manage in their entire careers. And despite the rambling nature of these songs, they're brilliantly constructed with hardly a wasted minute or gesture in the entire set. Rock music is too full of bands with modest aspirations that actively eschew pretensions; the fact that the Fiery Furnaces set out to create a big classic album and actually succeeded is worthy of all the applause that a humble, little-read weblog can create.
Other albums I liked almost as much: Dizzee Rascal - Showtime, Mission of Burma - ONoffON, Panda Bear - Young Prayer, TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, controller.controller - History EP.
10. RJD2, Since We Last Spoke
In which an entire cutout bin's worth of decades-old musical effluvia is reconfigured into some wonderful musical utopia where stadium rawk, new wave pop, cop show theme music and hip-hop backbeats all coexist in perfect harmony.
9. Comets on Fire, Blue Cathedral
Comets on Fire distill the heavier-than-heavy riffage of early Black Sabbath and Blue Cheer, the free jazz stabs of the Stooges' Fun House and the screaming of early grunge pioneers like Mudhoney's Mark Arm into stoner rock par excellence. Ridiculously loud, overwrought, heavy and ass-kickin'.
8. American Music Club, Love Songs for Patriots
Mark Eitzel's best set of songs in eleven years was an unfortunately appropriate soundtrack to America's continued descent into theocratic fundamentalism.
7. Espers
One of the best of this year's wave of psychedelic folk albums, full of gorgeously entrancing harmonies and instrumentation and a hauntingly dark and lonesome edge.
6. Ghostface, The Pretty Toney Album
The officially released version was good enough, but program out the skits and plug in some of best of Ghostface's unclearable mixtape songs and you have one nonstop barrage of classic soul samples and Ghostface's inimitable, shove-six-minutes-of-rhymes-into-three cadence.
5. Oneida, Secret Wars
Oneida draws from the psychkrautgarage well without sounding chained to their influences, investing repetitive drones like "Caesar's Column" and the one-chord bashfest "The Winter Shaker" with hypnotic power. And the epic "Changes in the City" works over one riff to dizzying effect, subtly reshifting a simple theme for over 14 minutes.
4. Destroyer, Your Blues
This, on paper, should not work - a set of songs that sound like the score of a regional theatre musical, built sonically around the fakest synthesized orchestra imaginable and Dan Bejar's quavery nasal voice. But it's a sweepingly grand (and grandiose) work filled with insistently memorable songs and oddly moving performances.
3. Madvillain, Madvillainy
My favorite of the ultraprolific MF Doom's three releases in 2004 - Doom's offhanded brilliance combined with Madlib's endlessly flowing soul/jazz beats and the overall late night/low budget feel made for an endlessly addictive listen.
2. Animal Collective, Sung Tongs
At first, this sounds like a field recording of some back-to-nature hippie cult sect's tribal rituals. It takes a few listens before you realize how ingeniously the songs here are constructed and how insidiously catchy these songs are at their core. A perfect balance of insane inspiration and compositional strength.
1. Fiery Furnaces, Blueberry Boat
I have annoyed everyone I know this year with my unconditional love of this album, so here's one more rave before I let it go already. The mini-epics contained here throw out a dizzying array of melodic ideas spiraling on top of each other and delivered with the enthusiasm and lack of patience of a bunch of ADD-addled kids. There are more brilliant hooks, choruses and throwaway lines here than most bands or performers manage in their entire careers. And despite the rambling nature of these songs, they're brilliantly constructed with hardly a wasted minute or gesture in the entire set. Rock music is too full of bands with modest aspirations that actively eschew pretensions; the fact that the Fiery Furnaces set out to create a big classic album and actually succeeded is worthy of all the applause that a humble, little-read weblog can create.
Other albums I liked almost as much: Dizzee Rascal - Showtime, Mission of Burma - ONoffON, Panda Bear - Young Prayer, TV on the Radio - Desperate Youth, Bloodthirsty Babes, controller.controller - History EP.
A response to William Carlos Williams' "This Is Just To Say":
I put my
name on
those damn
plums
first my
ben and jerry's
now this
enough already
You're a doctor
for god's sake
stop mooching
my produce
I put my
name on
those damn
plums
first my
ben and jerry's
now this
enough already
You're a doctor
for god's sake
stop mooching
my produce
OK, let's try this again. New blog rules from this point forward:
- No personal guilt about updating this thing. If I come up with something, great. If not, whatevs.
- No filler entries to update for the sake of updating.
- MP3s only when I can find something rare/unique/weird that isn't covered by one of the eleventy billion MP3 blogs out there.
- No more boring meta-entries like this one that no one could possibly care about.
- No more lists of stupid personal resolutions I have no intention of keeping.
- No personal guilt about updating this thing. If I come up with something, great. If not, whatevs.
- No filler entries to update for the sake of updating.
- MP3s only when I can find something rare/unique/weird that isn't covered by one of the eleventy billion MP3 blogs out there.
- No more boring meta-entries like this one that no one could possibly care about.
- No more lists of stupid personal resolutions I have no intention of keeping.