I saw the po-lice arresting Santa Claus?

Nope! Don't worry-- according to The Law and the Multiverse, a blog that takes a close look at superheroes and their actions in the context of US law, they'd have a hard time making the charges stick:

At first glance it might seem that Santa Claus is liable in tort and criminal law for trespass, but the homeowner’s consent negates both charges. Sending letters to Santa, hanging stockings with care, setting out milk and cookies, and the like are all clear manifestations of consent for Santa Claus to enter one’s home and deposit presents (or coal, as the case may be). Indeed I suspect it would be quite difficult to find someone who received a present from Santa Claus yet could honestly claim that he or she did not consent to its delivery.

This is a really interesting blog that I'm sure you guys will get a kick out of. Some of the language goes over my head but the explanations are very clear and get broken down for the laymen. Found this via The New York Times. Says the article, "The site thus suggests that in the grand Venn diagram of life, there appears to be substantial overlap between lawyers and the people Mr. Daily lovingly refers to as 'comic book nerds.'" Something I definitely noticed, especially at Midtown Comics in Manhattan. If you ever went during lunchtime, there were always these youngish to middle-aged men in suits standing around reading the latest magazines. It was always a fun thing to see.

Oh yeah, and it's relevant to the real world, too. Or at least, it will be one day:

Professor Somin added that debating the legal ramifications of superpowers might bring a smile, but might also prove the foundation for something more important some day. “Over the next several decades we’re going to see technology and powers emerge that today only exist in science fiction and comic books,” he said, citing Arthur C. Clarke’s famous saying that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

[pic source]

i'd never steal from santa

christmas caroling with GWAR

BING MOTHERFUCKING CROSBY

I'm sure you've seen this floating around. At first I was a little nervous because, as you know, I have a deep and abiding love for Bing Crosby, and will violently defend him, alcoholism and all (not that you have to do this in a world where top 40 hits talk about gargling with liquor, as far as I can tell.) Anyway, it turned out that Will Ferrel and John C Reilly have made what is a rather sweet homage to the original-- very wackadoo if you think about it-- video while still leading up to a pretty funny payoff. Turns out you can make a joke very funny with only a few simple elements, and not a fart in sight. Because remember, you cunts. He's Bing Fucking Crosby pal okay?

Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy with Will Ferrell & John C. Reilly from Will Ferrell

GAP owns Christmas

Shame on me for this in light of the rampant commercialization of Christmas. Or look at it this way: money funds the arts? I dunno. Anyway, I vaguely remember these ads on TV, but only just ran across them on Youtube. Obviously I dig the Janelle Monae cos it's Janelle Monae. I also dig "Baby It's Cold Outside" because of Selma Blair, who I'm all about simply because she's in Hellboy. I'm that easy.

no doubt vid

This No Doubt cover I can take or leave, much like No Doubt in general; it's got good energy. But I just saw the video (never knew there was one) and it's pretty silly in a good way.

rancid wants to help you get your weekly rancid fix

Looks like Rancid is starting up a weekly feature called "Live in the Living Room," a video series of stripped-down versions of their songs, as well as some promised covers, which is what I'm especially looking forward to.

Sez them: Rancid has started doing weekly sessions we're calling "Rancid Live In The Living Room". Every Monday a new song drops. These songs are recorded live and filmed to share with you. We are keeping it raw, no overdubs, no studio tricks. Acoustic, and electric renditions of Rancid songs varying from our entire catalog, as well as an occasional cover song.

Neato freakin mosquito. Thus far we've got "Wrongful Suspicion" and "Tenderloin," (embedded above) a swingin' version that's pretty cool. It gets my thumbs-up for being a cover that brings something new to the original; "Wrongful Suspicion" does, also, but not in the same exotic way a rockabilly "Tenderloin" does.

A long time ago I left a vague comment on one of Tim Armstrong's videos on YouTube about how he's like omg waaay into b&w high-contrast-- as in so into it every single video from his album got that visual treatment-- and people got mad at me and I never commented on YouTube again because I'm sensitive. So I was worried I was the only one who is still sick of seeing all these vids in b&w high contrast. I dig the look on stationary, unmoving images: posters, art, whatever. T-shirts. I have a Rancid t-shirt that is exactly that; it's an integral part of the punk rock aesthetic. But I find it totally uninteresting to watch as a video; the movement makes the shadows move around too much & becomes hard to follow. It's also boring. Luckily, turns out other people don't like it, as I found out from Punknews, where I first heard about the Living Room series. I take comfort in being part of the majority, I really do.

So this is totally mean but we have this running joke at home about how Matt Freeman, who is always getting cut out of videos-- FOR REAL, they cut his freakin head out of one vid (I can't remember which one, the one where Tim has the Buddy Holly glasses) so they could film tim singing, or something--sounds like a muppet. But then again, so does Joe Escalante (Exhibit A) as well as crust, in general.

(See how I sneaked in a Christmas song on Thanksgiving? Which is to say, Happy Thanksgiving everyone xoxo)

Wassailing is not ass wailing. Or is it?

My boyfriend ("J") is the Grinch and hates Christmas songs like some kind of Communist, so we were of course naming as many as we could think of the other night (over the Giants fans whopping at same bar as mentioned before, also over the music that was trying to block out the Giants fans, so we were yelling too which just contributed to the problem) and our buddy brought up "Here we come a wassailing."

Which brought us to how we all thought we were terribly clever back in the day when we figured out Santa was an anagram for Satan.

And then I thought I was terribly clever because I realized Wassailing is an anagram for ass wailing. Mostly because that's what they're doing, right? Going around wailing Christmas songs at your door &c, and you're hiding in the backroom because you don't know if it's like trick or treating, or that St Stephen's day thing, like do you have to give them candy or money or your good china?

Well it turns out wassail is a punch. But don't worry-- wassailing, as a verb, is about still going around irritating your neighbors, presumably drunk. With suggested Anglo-Saxon origins, it was a way during the so-called feudal period to irritate the lord of your manor and, yes, he did have to give you something to eat. If he wasn't a douchebag, presumably. Or if he didn't set his hounds or gangs of color-bearing mercenaries after you. The songs were meant to invoke blessings, good cheer, etc, for the coming year-- which is why you wish people Merry Christmases. In England, the orchard-wassailing was to promote a good harvest.

Naturally, the practice took a violent turn, as if this wasn't a surprise since you were giving people alcohol and sending them around to harass people, with reports of obnoxious drunken early New England versions of the hey-bra types to bust into houses and demand food & drink. Think in "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"-- "we won't go until we got some." Sinister. This should give J. the Grinch, Mr NYHC, something to appreciate about Christmas songs, and all you punk rocker kids, you. (Which means I can start playing the songs in the house, right?)

So I guess maybe you should stay in that back room. Because it's not ass-wailing. It could be ass-whaling. And while you're at it, brew some of that wassail punch stuff. Modcloth has got the recipe up.

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry

I have always associated this story with the above Norman Rockwell picture because our family owned the Norman Rockwell Christmas book. As an ardent fan of the man, I'd rather resort to fisticuffs than try to intellectually explain his greatness (luckily someone smart at Vanity Fair did that for me.)

Fifty-Two Stories, a site sponsored by Harper Perennial that I've been meaning to mention, say for fifty-two weeks, has posted the master of the twist's Christmas-time twist for this coming Christmas week. The version they've chosen is a newly illustrated format by Joel Priddy, whose art is as cheerful and gentle as the story.

• The Gift of the Magi from Fifty Two Stories

To go with it--though not sure how much I like this version, maybe I hafta hear it a few more times--

• Tom Waits - Silent Night, Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis [live | Skreemr]

Ur a card. Ima card. Sending cards?

J & I have been trying to decide if we should do Christmas cards. ("Should we do Christmas cards? Is it too late?" "I dunno. Maybe." Which is repeated every time I see a cute card I like.) The question is if we really even know enough people "by address" to send them to. I could be a dick and Photoshop (with credit) some of the cards I like and e-mail them to people. But that means 1. I'd be being a dick. And, 2. e-card, just not the same.

C sent me this link (the above graphic) this morning (which I also received this morning, which means I got up in the morning and not, say, at 3pm) and it was stupid cute with the added bonus of being made by TopatoCo, which is also producing some of Wondermark's Christmas cards which, needless to say, make me giggle.

Check a few more out after the jump. This one is also quite silly. Then go see the real deal. They go for $12/pop.

Continue reading!

White Christmas [1992 edition]

In looking for album images, I've found that there are in fact two White Christmas albums, this one and this one here, which I'm posting here because I think it's a lot better. Granted, it's the one I grew up with, so there's massive personal bias, what sets it apart is the warmth and nostalgia that comes from its format: it's a recording of a radio show, and the album includes Bing's jokes and chatter. If you read the reviews, some people don't like that, and to them I say: You are probably communiss. Anyway, this one also leaves out the ethnic novelty songs, which, while they have their own charm, don't quite measure up to the content of this 1992 edition. The dialogue is fun, the arrangments "bouncy," and you get 15 tracks of Crosby in his popular element.

• Bing Crosby ~ White Christmas [1992]
• Buy

Bing & Bowie

The tradition Bing & Bowie posting, this time with mp3s.

• Bing & Bowie - Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy [w. dialogue] [skreemr]
• Bing & Bowie - Peace On Earth/Little Drummer Boy [song only] [skreemr]

Shrek the Halls [2007]

As with the Shrek movies, the charm and hilarity is in the details, including one of the pigs flying around the room singing Ride of the Valkyrie, Puss' inability to ignore small balls and just the fact that it's ANTONIO BANDERAS, and how darn cute everything is. The plot and message are what you would expect, but it doesn't lose the more "adult" jokes of the films (especially at the start with the holiday rush, the cross-dressing wolf, Gingi in general.)

• Watch online via videostop

BABIES!

"Orphan Earl" (The My Name Is Earl Christmas Episode)

"Orphan Earl" [via hulu]

Next item on the list: Earl must help the victim of a scam he started years ago and that Joy and her friends have been carrying on since.

Christmas With the Rat Pack

Pure class and an awesome cover design, to boot.

Christmas with the Rat Pack [rar] | Buy | Tracklist

Vintage Christmas Pinups!

& More!

Cold!

According to that source, this song was debuted by composer Frank Loesser and his wife at one of their parties. The rights were sold to MGM, who used the song in Neptune's Daughter not once but twice-- sung by Ester Williams and Ricardo Montalban and the other by Red Skelton and Betty Garrett. I have the former linked down there. Loesser won himself an Academy Award for the song. On the sheet music, the female is "The Mouse" and the man is "The Wolf." Gives new meaning to that "Say, what's in this drink?" line, huh.

• Ricardo Montalban & Ester Williams ~ Baby, It's Cold Outside
• Dean Martin ~ Baby, It's Cold Outside
• Leon Redbone & Zooey Deschanel ~ Baby, It's Cold Outside
• Dinah Shore ~ Baby, It's Cold Outside
• Homer & Jethro feat. June Carter ~ Baby, It's Cold Outside
• Homer & Jethro feat. June Carter ~ Baby, It's Cold Outside SKIT!-- don't worry, Johnny rescues her in the end

Feel Good Holiday Movie: Last Holiday

Okay, so maybe a movie starring Queen Latifah and LL Cool J about a woman with three weeks left to live might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I have always found Queen Latifah to have an extremely pleasing on-screen presence ("It's clear that Queen Latifah is a proper, old school movie star - the camera loves her and her constantly upbeat screen persona is extremely likeable") and this movie, if it sounds remotely like your kind of thing, is a sweet-natured feel-good holiday movie. (I have not seen the original, starring out favorite, Sir Alec Guinness.)

Queen Latifah's character, Georgia Byrd, is a wallflower department store clerk who is incapable of carpe diem'ing her life; she cooks gourmet dinners that she does not eat, and she has a crush on a co-worker (LL Cool J) that, despite his reception, she cannot act on (though she keeps using her store discount to buy bbq grills from his department.) When she finds out she has only weeks to live and that her health care will not cover the operation, she pulls all her money from the bank and embarks on her dream vacation to a luxury hotel where her favorite chef, played by Gerard Depardieu, cooks. It's not the most unpredictable plot ever, and as you can expect, Queen Latifah teaches people lessons (like how real people order food) and is very charming, but if what you need is some light holiday fare for a slow afternoon, this is perfect.

Last Holiday (in parts, Youtube):

First Season Fresh Prince Christmas Episode

Cos it's deeply, deeply dope.

• Part I & Part II & Part III [youtube]

Will tries to bring the holiday spirit to his aunt and uncle's house. When the neighbors complain about his decorations, an old-executive power intercedes (cos Nancy won't let him do anything fun to the house.) Evander Holyfield makes a guest appearance. Check out the absurd decorator in Part II, who tells us that "the 90s are going to be all about. . . restraint."

Enjoy!

Oi! to the World

Kicking off the holiday season with our traditional Vandals' Christmas album post! Oi to the World features the title track, a crazy punk rock Tchaikovsky track, and one of my favorites, "Nothing's Gonna Ruin My Holidays."

• The Vandals - Oi to the World
• Buy from amazon.com

The Vandals will be playing 3 Christmas shows. Hopefully they won't last-minute cancel sans explanation a la 2007 Warped Tour.

Dec 19 2008 @ SLIM’S
San Francisco, California
w/Goodbye Gadget and Time Again

Dec 20 2008 @ House of Blues Disneyland
Anaheim, california
w/ the aggrolites

Dec 21 2008 @ House Of Blues
San Diego, California
w/ The Phenomenauts