Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: “Funky, Funky, Xmas”

For other Holiday Horrors posts, click here.

The time to make fun of New Kids on the Block, like the time of New Kids on the Block themselves, has long since passed. Such hackery belongs with jokes whose punchlines end in “Where’s the Beef?”

However, no discussion of Holiday Horrors would be complete without a mention of their 1989 album Merry Merry Christmas. Slapped together in a cynical attempt to capitalize on both the group’s popularity and the Yuletide season, it is a cornucopia of fake holiday sentiment, misappropriated hip-hop, and bad drum machines.

Late 80s music production drives me completely up the wall, and Merry Merry Christmas is no exception. This was the dawning of the digital recording era–also known as The Era of No Low End. Every sound is compressed to within an inch of its life, and it’s all so trebly it makes Alvin and the Chipmunks sound like Barry White.

The album contains no redeeming features, but if I had to pick the worst track, I’d opt for “Funky, Funky, Xmas”. There is so much to hate about it. From the cookie cutter beat to the sub-kindergarten-level lyrics to the unnecessary second comma in the title, it is wall to wall suck. And despite the double “funky”s in the title, it is about as funky as Perry Como. Especially as performed on The Arsenio Hall Show, which you can view below, if you dare.

This version is actually worse than the studio cut, because the Kids valiantly attempt to sing live over the screams of their adoring fans as they bust some Roger Rabbits. Unfortunately, without the benefit of the latest digital compressors, they sound like guys trying to shout at you across a room as they run on treadmills.

Seasonal Fare

Obama Requests More Troops to Fight War on Christmas

obama_xmas.jpgWASHINGTON–Making good on a campaign promise, President Obama formally requested 50,000 more troops from Congress to “finally finish the War on Christmas.”

“As you all know, I ran on the audacity of hope and the tyranny of joy,” the president said during a fireside press conference, as he threw dolls and toy trains on the flames. “These ideals lead me to fear and despise the holiday you call Christmas. I believe that together, we can destroy this cheerful, heart-warming season once and for all.”

Troops will be deployed to combat entrenched pockets of resistance, concentrating on regions controlled by the Candy Cane Commandos and the Sugar Plum Guerillas. General Petraeus said these forces should be no match for American firepower, “since most of their weapons are made of marzipan. But I must also emphasize that they are powered by an innate sense of childlike wonder and love, which can be dangerous.”

This new troop surge will be the first in the ongoing battle against Christmas since President Clinton requested 25,000 troops in 1995. Shortly after speaking to Congress, he was approached by an adorable, doe-eyed girl, and rescinded his request when his heart grew three sizes that day.

Holiday Horrors 2009

Holiday Horrors: The Christmas Sweater

glennbeck.jpgFor other Holiday Horrors posts, click here.

I hate to divide people into camps, but I think I can safely say there are two kinds of people in America right now: People who hang on Glenn Beck’s every word, and people who think he’s batshit insane. There is no in between. There is no one who sorta likes him or catches his show every now and then. You either despise him or want a lock of his brush cut.

As vile as other right wing yakkers might be (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly), they’re not stupid. They know how to push people’s buttons, but they also know what they can and can’t say. When push comes to shove, they’re just out to make a buck. If they could figure out how to make one more dollar as lefty talking heads than they do right now, they’d switch sides tomorrow.

Glenn Beck, on the other hand, is genuinely unhinged. And monstrously theatrical. He’s like Joe McCarthy crossed with Bob Fosse. I would not be surprised if he did a whole show in a black union suit and bowler hat while flashing jazz hands.

The more I see Glenn Beck, the more I’m convinced that he will totally implode one day, and soon. It’s a question of when, not if. And this won’t be some simple indiscretion coming to light or a mild tantrum. This is gonna be the full Howard Beale. He is gonna snap, live on the air, and say/do something so insane that not even Fox News can excuse it.

How do I know? The Christmas Sweater.

If you’re an effete liberal snob like me, you may not be familiar with The Christmas Sweater. That’s Beck’s heartstring-tugging multimedia spectacular. It tells the story of an ungrateful poor kid and his “return to redemption” (a phrase that gets exponentially stupider the more you think about it, like “a history of tradition”).

It features Glenn Beck gesturing and fetal-positioning his way to forgiveness, a one-woman gospel Greek chorus, plot contrivances that would be rejected from the worst romance novel, and crying. Lots of crying. Good lord, this man knows how to turn on the waterworks. Do not trust anyone who can cry on cue like that. They’re either manipulative, emotionally unstable, or doing pounds of blow.

Glenn Beck performed The Christmas Sweater last year, and it was simulcast in movie theatres across the country. Now it’s back again, plaguing a multiplex somewhere you. For a blow-by-blow account of this monstrosity, peep Dave Holmes’ blog post about going to see it with a friend for ironic purposes, and discovering to his horror that “the open mockery section…held exactly two people.”

Seriously, read that post and tell me: You think this guy’s here to stay? He’s a sniper in search of a belltower.

A potentially explosive collection of verbal irritants