Even if the three wise men weren't smashed on ketamine and listening to breakcore on their journey to Bethlehem, I still think Christmas is a pretty interesting time.
It's ecologically interesting because everyone starts pimping their own personal trees with shiny plastic crap, as if trees weren't pretty enough already.
It's a true family time because thousands of people worship a new born baby by spending entire days gorging and spending money, when normally they'd pay lip service to new parents with a half-cocked "oh isn't your baby pretty" whilst secretly comparing the nipper to a sack of potatoes.
And it's a wonderful time for music, what with Simon Cowell personally escorting the Archangel Gabriel by gunpoint to buy the new CD by The Powerpuff Boys / Tammy Teenporn / Insert Generic X Factor Winner.
Who am I kidding? If life is an elixir to be drunk, Christmas is a slopbucket steaming next to an overflowing drain. The seasonal tackiness I can cope with, but it seems if you are without family or friends or money, yuletide is a time of sadness, of loneliness and of gnawing off your own legs in boredom.
And then, even if you do get to hobble to church without breaking your face on the snow, Christmas doesn't even do religion right: the image of Jesus as a baby does much less for me than the revolutionary aspect of the biblical stories. Babies are rubbish at turning over tables in temples, rubbish, I tell you. I know because I've carried out experiments.
So please, switch the telly off, put the turkey in the dustbin, and let's all sit in silence and not enjoy ourselves. If we blink really fast and pretend we're in a club with strobes, Christmas will be over before we know it.
(While you're doing that, I will be spending the day getting fat and merry with friends. I love Christmas just for that, although don't tell anyone because it would undermine the essential grouchiness of this blog post.)
2010 was a year of collosal highs and lows. I was hospitalised when my internal organs went on strike and I still see the scars everytime I catch my reflection in people's windows on my daily morning streak. But I also won accolade for my blog, which seems to have shifted my creative life several degrees in an unusual and exciting direction.
In the dying embers of the year, it's all about to flare up in Fatro Land. I need to tell you about my top ten best 2010 electronica albums (see last year's waffling here), and also my favourite films (again, here's last year's). And then, one of the annual highlights of Fat Roland On Electronica, my stupendous preview of the upcoming year in electronic music (here's last year's).
None of it is written yet, but I have to get it done. Good job I'll be spending all day writing instead of getting fat and merry with-- oh, wait. Damn you, Christmas, you've foiled me again...
6 comments:
I really hope Four Tet - "There is Love In You" makes your top ten. I love that album.
I have about 52 albums under consideration. It's a bit overwhelming, really. I'm pretty sure you won't be disappointed, though.
Why don't blog posts have a 'like' button? I don't have anything to say, but I liked reading it...
I wish your comment had a "well hello / raised eyebrow / polite handshake / vague promise to self to keep in touch more" button.
If Jesus was an X factor contestant, then we'd be treated to plenty of flashbacks of his early life as part of the show.
I know that you're a big fan of the Jesus-as-seditious-revolutionary, but you need the Christmas set-up to get to the Easter punchline.
And let's face it you can't get much more X Factor than a child born humbly - whose 'dad' stuck with his mother even though she got pregnant and was still a virgin (theological rambling aside: I thought Mary & Joseph were married, and I thought you needed to consumate a marriage for it to be properly counted as a marriage, so how come Mary was a virgin?)
And let's face it, the last week of Jesus' life is a bit like winning the X factor. So you win the competition - acclaimed by the public - get Christmas Number one and then very shortly afterwards you're forgotten by all and crucified by the tabloids.
So we live the festive story over and over again.
Does this make Simon Cowell the new Pontius Pilate? "Which one shall we crucify, remember the lines don't open until we've heard them all for the last time"
(actually that would probably make Dermot O'Leary in the Pilate role. That means Cowell is the man dressed entirely in black... oh dear, I think I know exactly who.....)
Oh crapsocks, I'm going to have to start worshipping X Factor, aren't I?
The show needs blessing by some (Diana) vicars, and every year we'll have to Journey South to Mecca. Or something. There is only One Direction to God. People have been saying I need to give my life to X Factor: "That'll really Rhydian of his transgressions."
I'm having to look these up on Wikipedia, y'know.
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