Graffiti Correction
Uptown Funky Butt
Even though the house may not be settled, sometimes you just need to shake your butt.
So this is Christmas
I am typically never in the mood for Christmas when the season starts rolling around. Every year I go further and further into December before I start feeling any twinge of interest and even farther to feel any excitement. Not many more years down the road I won’t sense these things until mid-January.
I know… I’m a Scrooge.
Well, I felt a spark of Christmas life on Sunday. There were two events that struck my flinty heart and made it smolder a bit.
First, there was shopping early in the morning at T J Maxx. Why was I not in church on a Sunday morning? Well, look, don’t judge. The good thing was that my wife and I found Jesus (and Mary and Joseph) at T J Maxx. What made me happiest about this was that the Holy Family turned out to be the perfect gift for dear friends of ours. It felt good to buy this object in order to give it away, just to be able to indicate to our friends that, “Hey, we are happy that you are in our lives.” (Even though one of us might be rather humbuggy.)
The second thing that jazzed me up a bit for this holiday was a Christmas concert at St. Paul’s Church in Clifton, NJ. The lighting of the dozen Christmas trees at the front of the church caused oohs and aahs. I think that’s what got me. I thoroughly enjoyed that concert: operatic singing, youth choir, singer/songwriter, baritone horn and trombone, cabaret style, congregational singing. I teared up a few times.
Here’s one song that I loved. It features our friend, Valerie Bernhardt singing and my wife accompanying on piano.
And here’s a song that just plain makes me happy.
I can’t guarantee that this little spark will turn into a real flame in time for Christmas. But there are still 10 days to go. There’s hope.
Throwback Thursday – In the Days of the Mullet
The question that comes to mind, and which has been asked by my observant fiancee, is why is that lanyard hanging off my sunglasses and not wrapped (tightly perhaps) around my neck?
I allowed myself to sink into a 20-year reverie (not a 20-year long reverie, but reminiscing back to 20-years past) and I remembered why I never wrapped that cord around my neck. The reason: I used to keep those glasses slung over the rearview mirror of my car, which was quite possibly a bronze-colored Volare station wagon at that period of my life, which eventually bit the dust and which a friend and I almost lost on I-78 while towing it behind his pickup truck up Jugtown Mountain. It was a pain in the neck to wear that lanyard around my neck, get it under all that glorious long hair, which some of you, the racists among you, are inordinately fond of referring to as a “mullet,” only to have to extract said lanyard from beneath that gorgeous mane to re-hang from the mirror, and then to properly re-style the curly locks again. Mystery solved.
On close inspection, one might notice what appears to be an even longer lanyard hanging off my shoulders. Before you question it, I will reveal that it is the pull strings from the maroon hoodie I traditionally wore beneath that ultra-cool Lee jean jacket. (Racists refer to it as “dungaree.”) I still have that jacket. It only fits half of me now.
By the way, I still have that guitar too. I’ve had it for 30 years now. Others have come and gone over the years. That one is still my one love, from the days of the mullet to the days of… well, yes, now I have a lot less hair. Sigh.