THE MISSING JOINT, 12-24-2022: GLAD TIDINGS AND PASS THE EGGNOG!
Hey All,
We’re going Jointless this Sunday, tomorrow, Christmas Day, but I just wanted to shoot a little something out before signing off for the week. The EOS Fundraiser has just crested $60K, and I expect some showboating latecomers out there will be dropping something into the kitty between now and the New Year, and folks, this means we can keep the lights on in 2023, and start to build the Archive.
Thank you, one and all, donors and subscribers, not just for the money but the words of support and encouragement.
Thank you for the typo fixes and suggestions. There’s been an uptick in people sending me historical photos or found Super 8 home movies—here’s one from San Francisco, here’s one from Jax Beach—and these have become my favorite clips to edit and post, so thank you for that.
The work EOS is doing is vital and important, and it would be Scrooge-like of me to not take a moment to also thank EOS tech-boss Mark Augias, utility man and multi-instrumentalist Brad Barrett, and Ella “The Kid” Boyd, our newcomer, and the EOS Board of Directors.
Now let us move on to a bit of at-random Holiday Cheer.
We begin with the canonical reading of “Da Kine Chreesmess Fairystory,” by the Patterson brothers. “Once upon one time get dis big fat bugga in one da kine red and white Lauhala, he like take plenty toy stuffs to all da keikis aroun da worl. Chee, dis bugga so fass he make ’em all ovah da place in jes one nite.” Read the whole thing, in all its 1966 pidgin-English glory, here.
Now have a listen to “The Nut Rocker,” your new favorite Christmas track, a 1962 #1 in the UK—a great song produced by a truly horrible man.
And by all means let’s laugh together at this classic Santa fail, with the understanding that our laughter is not cruel because we also admire Santa’s recovery, which is first-rate.
Pivoting for a moment away from Cheer, my son asked last week about sad Christmas songs, of which it turns out there are many, and while all you John Prine fans are rightly pointing to “Christmas in Prison,” the consensus favorite is that downbeat choral showstopper from A Charlie Brown Christmas. The song, by the Vince Guaraldi Trio, is called “Christmas Time is Here,” and the lyrics are pure light and uplift, starting with the opening verse:
Christmas time is here
Happiness and cheer
Fun for all that children call
Their favorite time of year
But the melody and arrangement sound like somebody found a secret basement door in the minor key scale leading to a new, darker, sadder key, and my question is—in 1965, when A Charlie Brown Christmas was first broadcast, was the idea to toughen us kids up? Kneecap the Christmas Spirit with a two-by-four of Holiday Depression? It is amazing, almost impossible, to think that the networks signed off on this saddest, most gut-wrenching of kids’ TV specials. I never missed A Charlie Brown Christmas as a child, and even into my teen years. It is a small miracle of a show.
But let us return to cheer, leaving Charlie Brown for Snoopy, and here’s hoping that at some point this week you’re running out of the house with an all-caps “SURF’S UP!” thought bubble over your head.
Thanks for reading, everyone, and see you next year!
Matt
