Continuing the fabled tradition begun all the way back in 2009, Scratchbomb presents Holiday Horrors and Holiday Triumphs: an advent calendar of some of the more hideous aspects of this most stressful time of year–with a few bits of awesomeness sprinkled in.
We live in the golden age of the Local Kook. Once upon a time, if there was some wacky eccentric in your town, he or she would toil away in tin-foil-hatted obscurity. But nowadays, even the most obscure nuts can make it big on the interwebs.
One such example: Jan Terri, a Windy City resident who fancies herself a songwriter and performer. She also makes videos for these songs. Really bad videos, apparently shot on a camcorder. Said videos became something of an internet sensation a few years back, and she has many online devotees, some of them unironic ones.
She has more range than her fellow Chicagoan, Wesley Willis, but a similarly myopic view of the world. All of her videos are padded out with odd, seemingly endless shots of random buildings. She films herself on location for no discernible reason. And the videos are edited about as well as camcorder footage can be edited, which is to say, hatchet-like.
Among her many oeuvres is a Christmas tune called “Rock n Roll Santa.” Truth be told, this is not a bad song, musically. You will hear much, much worse tunes at the mall during the holidays. Unfotunately, Ms. Terri is not a gifted lyricist, or a singer. In penning verses, she’s closer to the aforementioned Mr. Willis than Ira Gershwin. In voice, too, sadly. I don’t know if Ira could carry tune, but he’d have to be better than Terri, since virtually everyone is.
I struggled over whether I should include this in the Holiday Horrors category. When it comes to found video stuff like this, I always wonder if mocking it says more about the mocker than the mockee. Clearly, Terri and her cohorts are having a blast making this video. Who am I to make fun of this, like I’m such a big shot? (Last sentence written by my mom.)
Ultimately, I decided that this could not go into the Holiday Triumphs because, at the end of the day, it’s too weird not to be some form of Horror. So in that spirit, here’s some horror!
