* Climbing out of the subway station this morning on 7th Avenue and 49th Street, I found myself staring up at a massive, two-paneled billboard. On one panel loomed a vast black and white photograph of a contemplative Marvin Gaye circa What's Going On?, looking pained and poignant in a rain-dampened pea coat. On the adjoining panel read the legend: Hennessy - Never Blend In. That's it. Now, is this to suggest that Hennessy cognac is somehow like Marvin Gaye? Or is this to imply that if you liberally drink Hennessy, you'll accrue the same sort've profoundly soulful pathos Gaye's more celebrated work is renowned for? Or is it asserting that Gaye, like Hennessy, didn't mix well with other liquors? No matter how you slice it, I couldn't help thinking that it was rather belittling to the legendary soul man's legacy. So Hennessy gets the middle finger, and I'm not really even a Marvin Gaye fan. Screw advertising.
* I was down in our building's basement Saturday afternoon, loading some laundry out of one of the dryers. When you have a child, you find yourself doing inordinate amounts of laundry. Decorum and good taste forbid me from going into detail as to exactly why you're doing so much laundry, but trust me, your laundry duty increases sevenfold. In any case, the maintenance staff in our building generally has the basement wired for sound, and tuned to some Lite Rock radio station, meaning you often find yourself folding your underwear while grooving to the plangent strains of vintage Journey or Hall & Oates. In any case, Saturday afternoon -- December 3, 2005 -- I found myself wincing through the shrillness of an especially toxic rendition of "Sleigh Ride" ("Just hear those sleigh bells jingling, ring ting tingling too...") by some noxious, washed-up crooner like Paul Anka or something. People, we have flippin' THREE WHOLE WEEKS before the actual holiday, and they're already cranking out the carols?!?!? WHAT IS THE RUSH? I've barely digested my goddamn turkey. Why must the holidays be paced at such a feverish sprint these days? Humbug.
* Succumbing to the seemingly premature arrival of the Christmas season, we actually picked up a small, table-top-sized Christmas tree yesterday. If we put a conventional tree in our living room these days, Charlotte would invariably go a bit nuts and try to climb it, so we're sticking with the pint-sized variety for the moment (perched where her little mitts cannot get at it). Attempting to jump-start the seasonal cheer, the wife and I both decided on practically the only album of Christmas music either of us can really stomach, that being The Original Soundtrack Recording of The CBS Television Special: A Charlie Brown Christmas, music by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. The perfect balance of Yuletide sentimentalilty and mid-60's piano jazz (albeit with one fleeting bit of cloying irritation, when the Peanuts gang bust into a lung-straining shoutalong through "Hark the Herald Angel Sings") this album's a timeless keeper. If I remember corrrectly, I think I gave a copy of this disc to every member of my family a number of years ago, and most copies were met with incredulous chortling. Laugh it up all ya want, but this album is everything you could possibly need when it comes to Christmas music, so Paul Anka, Andy Williams, Bing Crosby and Burl Ives can all go kiss my ass.
*ADDENDUM* I know I just invited Bing Crosby to kiss my ass at the -- fittingly -- tail end of the last bullet point, but I would like to take that back, as I do consider myself a fan of Bing's duet with David Bowie on "Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy." Recorded for a television special on September 11, 1977 -- just a few months prior to Bing's death -- the duet paired the old, martini-swiggin' coot with a somewhat emaciated Bowie with an awkward quasi-mullet for a surprisingly melifluous stroll through a Christmas favorite. I also enjoy the somewhat incongruous fact that at the time of the recording of this cherished chestnut, Bowie was allegedly crawling out from under a pre-occupation with heroin, cocaine, the occult and -- some suggest -- Nazism. I woner how that would've flown with ol' Bing.
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