Happy New Year! (Almost)

Happy New Year! It's New Year's Eve and time to party and it ain't a party without Tom Jones, now is it?





Mr. Bean may be more bomb than sex, but still, he does know how to bust a move.

Alan Watts - Music and Life

Merry Christmas!

Linus Explains Christmas

Darlene Love "Christmas Baby (Please Come Home)"

Does it get any better than this?

Norah Jones and Jimmy Kimmel Sing YouTube's 12 Days of Christmas

Bing Crosby and David Bowie "Peace on Earth/The Little Drummer Boy"

Another from the WTF Christmas Video collection. You've seen it before, but it is a classic that bears repeating.

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

Rudolph is indeed the most famous reindeer of all. You might be able to name a couple of the other reindeer, but you'd be hard pressed to name them all. There's always one or two of those flying beasts whose names you can't remember. But Rudolph is the name that's always the first out of your mouth.

Rudy is a native Chicagoan. Robert L. May created him for his employer, Montgomery Ward, a Chicago-based retailer, to use as a marketing tool at Christmas. What this means is that Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer did things the "Chicago way." If someone didn't pay back his juice money, you sent Rudolph to collect. Need some protection? Rudolph was your reindeer. Like to bet on sports? Talk to Rudy. Need someone to go away? Rudy will make that happen. When Joseph Kennedy needed a friend to count the votes in Cook County for his son John in the 1960 presidential election, who did he call? Rudolph.

Wait a minute...that's not Rudolph's story. Not at all. That's just a perverse rehashing of Chicago stereotypes and a maligning of Chicago's legitimate businessmen's associations. I won't stand for that.

Here's the real story behind Rudolph...

A Sylverados Christmas

This is something a little different and cute that was sent along to me and now I'm sending it along to you.

Hardrock, Coco and Joe

I am a child of television. Not quite raised by tv, as I had a stay at home mom, but still, I spent a lot of time in front of the tv. TV has, sadly, provided me with some of my favorite childhood memories.

Each day, before school, as I was eating my sugar cereal, I would watch a kids show hosted Ray Rayner, a man in a jumpsuit with notes pinned to it. Apparently, one of the notes told him to play this 1950s cartoon every Christmas. Everyone around my age has seen this piece of stop action animation and, even if they don't admit it, there's a part of them that loves Hardrock, Coco and Joe.

Bob Dylan "Must Be Santa"

It's the first in our series of WTF Christmas Videos. Yes, Virginia, there is a Dylan in this video. Apparently, Bob likes to wear wigs.

Alvin and the Chipmunks "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)"

Alvin? ALVIN!!!

From the early 1960s tv show.

Julian Lennon and James Scott Cook "Lucy"

Ok, enough with the Bah Humbuggery.

Today is a brand new day and we can maybe get back into a more seasonal frame of mind. One of the things Christmas is about is the act of giving. While this isn't, strictly speaking, a "Christmas video," the intent of it is all about giving.

Julian Lennon and James Scott Cook collaborated on this song, "Lucy," and if you download it on iTunes 100% of the proceeds will be shared by the Lupus Foundation of America and Saint Thomas's Lupus Trust in Great Britain.

Christmas Comes But Once a Year (Thank God)

Here's the thing: For whatever reason, I can't get the embed codes to work for videos that I had planned to use for today, and I just don't feel like picking any other videos, so there. No Christmas videos for you.

Lewis Black on Christmas

Straight No Chaser "The Christmas Can-Can" animated version!

Uhhmmmm....there seems to be an animated version of "The Christmas Can-Can." It's cute.

"Eight Days of Hanukkah"

To celebrate the beginning of Hanukkah here's a brand new song, "Eight Days of Hanukkah," co-written by Madeline Stone, a Jewish woman who writes contemporary Christian music in Nashville, and Orin Hatch. The Republican Senator Orin Hatch of Utah. A Mormon. It is sung by Rasheeda Azar, a Syrian-American from Terre Haute, IN.

Again, this is one of those things where you can rightly say, "Only in America."

Eight Days of Hanukkah from Tablet Magazine on Vimeo.

Read the story behind the song by Jeffrey Goldberg.

A (Brief) History of Christmas

Straight No Chaser "The Christmas Can-Can"

The Rockettes they ain't.

War Is Over (If You Want It)

Twenty-nine years ago today John Lennon was shot down like a dog in the street by an obsessive crazy with a hand gun. Odd to write that so much time has passed because it seems like it happened last year, it seems so close, yet there you are, time flies in the blink of an eye.

There are all sorts of elements to the tragedy of someone dying, especially someone so relatively young, at the age of 40. Gun shot or heart attack or addictions, there are layers of sadness to any loss. In the case of Lennon, he was a husband and a father. That's on the more important, personal scale of things. On a grander scale, he was a beloved musician. A Beatle, a solo artist, a composer. But he meant so much more than those things somehow to so many. Lennon stood for something. For peace, for love, for choosing to be yourself, whatever those things may really mean to people. The loss of Lennon, to his fans, was a great loss in a lot of different ways, musically, creatively, spiritually.

When I watched the interviews on this video from "The Beatles TV" blog, I noticed toward the beginning John puts a record on what was then probably a pretty high tech stereo. The thought then occurred to me: what would John Lennon have made of today's technological world. How would he be dealing with the technology we have now, the digital world, the iTunes world, the computer in every home that allows everyone to be an artist in a easier, quicker way.

What he would would have done with this vast world of technology. The fun he would have had. Creating blogs and websites, twittering and tweeting and posting. The chance to create and share his creations with the universe. That's what Lennon lost along with his life, and the chance to experience those creations is what his fans lost.

Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra "Marshmallow World"

I don't know what it is about these two singing a silly Christmas-time song, but it puts a smile on my face. You just know once the song was over, they were gonna have a swell time, amply aided by a fully stocked bar and some swingin' chicks.

A Very Plaxico Christmas

Sunday is the day of the Lord. And Football.

What better way to warm the cockles of one's heart during the Christmas season than to watch large men chasing after other large men, one of whom happens to have a ball in his hands, and then the large men all try to cripple each other.

The only thing imbued with more Christmas spirit than the American love of football is the American love of the firearm.

Put those two things together, football and firearms (plus a little alcohol for good measure), and what do you get? A Very Plaxico Christmas.



Poor Plaxico. The guy shoots himself in the leg and he gets more time than some people who actually shot someone other than themselves. Such are the vagaries of American jurisprudence, that those who hurt themselves spend a longer time in prison than those who hurt others, particularly if there's a prosecutor with designs on higher office involved.

Try to have a merry Christmas anyhow, Plaxico.

"Santa's Workshop"

Today is the birthday of one Walt Disney. He was born on this day in 1901 in the fine city of Chicago. Disney began making animated short films, and from a small mouse enormous things came. From shorts to full length features to small amusement parks to giant theme parks to an entertainment empire, that's Disney.

In many Disney films, somebody or something has got to die. There will be grief. But in "Santa's Workshop," made in 1932 and re-colored in 2006, there is nothing but joy and happiness and one really, really jolly freakin' Santa. This is one happy dude. And how could he not be, surrounded as he is by elves and toys and the coming of Christmas Eve when he can spread joy to the world.

The Who "Christmas" and "The Acid Queen"

Ok, so this video is not really a "Christmas" video, despite the name of the song. But still, you're getting classic Who from the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival, and that's a pretty good Christmas gift, isn't it? Not a whole lot of better live bands than the Who in their prime.

Band Aid "Do They Know It's Christmas"

This is a guilty pleasure. Rock stars, or what passed for them in 1984, getting together to help starving Africans was a noble concept, but let's face facts, these celebrity relief efforts can turn out to be kind of lame. Strangely though, this song has held it's own, and still sounds good 25 Christmases later.

Origin of the word "Christmas"

This woman has so much to teach the world. Truly a great educator.

But seriously folks, how American is this? A Russian philologist (her website says she has two degrees in philology, so who am I to argue?) with a penchant for silicone (I'm only speculating here) and a sense of humor comes to the land of capitalism and makes a killing teaching what I assume is a mostly male audience the origin of English words.

You have to love this country. God bless us, everyone.

Perry Como "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas"

Holy mackerel, it's December 1st! How did this happen?!? Where did the year go? It was summer just yesterday, I swear it.

It's time to start thinking about Christmas. Actually, I have been already. I've been playing Christmas music at home since the end of September. I find it comforting. It's been a troubled year and I'm a trouble man with a troubled mind.

Still, even though I've been listening to Christmas carols and "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" for a few months now, December snuck up on me. I have a feeling Christmas Eve will be here sooner than I'll be ready for.

That's ok. I'll enjoy the holiday season anyway. And even though it's sunny and 50 degrees out, it is beginning to look a lot like...the same Perry Como video that I've played on December 1st for the last few years.