Well, when Black Friday comes, I generally strike all the big red words from my little black book instead of going shopping. Any whiff of Christmas before Thanksgiving gets my back up. It gives me restless leg syndrome. Not the kind they advertise on late-night TV, either. The kind where my leg gets restless to, as James Joyce so ably puts it, put a fong in your arse at the cash register. I’m trying to buy a single 1-1/2″ plastic pipe coupling at the Aubuchon, and everyone in front of me is buying four fake Christmas trees and paying with a check on an out-of-state bank. In October.
But now it’s December. Surely I can put aside my peeves and petulance and get with the program. Jolly up. Top it off with Christmas Cheer. Remind myself that the lumps of coal Santa brings for guys like me have a lot of BTUs in them, and last a good while in the stove. It’s a win/win season for me, even if I do assault a few people in a checkout line.
There’s no better way to swing into the true spirit of Christmas than with Unorganized Hancock. They wrote and recorded this original Christmas song last year, and called it the Generic Christmas Song, and like I told them, they only work once, but they can cash the checks forevermore. Christmas songs have no sell-by date.
Little known fact: The Ghost of Jacob Marley is actually Irving Berlin, returning from the grave to tell the RIAA to haunt you for listening to White Christmas without a permit. But my boys wrote this little ditty, so no one can sue us, except maybe for emotional distress or something else that doesn’t show up on an X-ray very well.
The wonder of Generic Christmas Song is that it’s the only recording by Unorganized Hancock that you can purchase and download for your MP3 player, or your iPod, or whatever those things with the fruit on them are called. Just 0.99, and all the proceeds go to a good cause: Us. You can pay more if you like, or you can listen to it for free on YouTube if you’re broke losers like we are. It’s all good.
Merry Christmas! Tell a friend.
Unorganized Hancock on Bandcamp
[Update: Wow! Many thanks to our friend Gerard at American Digest for putting the boys on his front page, and sending them a filthy lucre care package by overpaying on Bandcamp for their song. Merry Christmas Gerard!]
[Further Update: Thanks to Patricia and Cindy for overpaying for the boy’s song on bandcamp. It is greatly appreciated]
[Continued Updates: Merry Christmas to Kathleen M. in Connecticut, our children’s most stalwart supporter. Many thanks!]
[Some More Update: Super-duper thanks to Charles E from the Land of Enchantment for his generous support of our boys via the PayPal button. Merry Christmas!]
2 Responses
Sipp, I'll stick with the Christian aspects of Christmas. This can be a time of spiritual renewal and behavior. Here's a selection of scripture that, like your kids' Christmas song has no sell-by date.
Many versions use "Love" in place of Charity, but either works.
1 Corinthians 13
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profits me nothing.
4 Charity suffers long, and is kind; charity envies not; charity brags not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, thinks no evil; 6 Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth;
7 Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Charity never fails: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child; I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
13 And now stays faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
The local Mexican grocery where I shop to get bargains on meat and produce plays Spanish language music all the time.
During the Christmas season one song, with the tune we Gringos recognize as Jingle Bells, has lyrics completely unrelated to Jingle Bells. The lyrics have turned into a generic Christmas song: Feliz Navidad/Merry Christmas and all that. The lyrics are so generic I can't recall them.