The Friday Evening Pre-Christmas Open Thread Post

Welcome to my last post of the year.

I asked Seamus if he wouldn’t mind switching with me, and he readily agreed since it’s taking longer than he expected to get the squirrel piss out of the carpet. #thoughtsandprayers

I will be away from the #content mines for a couple of weeks. Tomorrow has football, so Scotchy has that. Next week, I will be down south celebrating Christmas with Mom so she’s not alone for once. Also, I’ll be checking up on her retirement situation, and discussing with BeerBrother whether we need to relocate her closer to home.

The week after – New Year’s – I will be spending with WineWife, making up for the fact that I spent Christmas with Mom. I’m hoping her temper will be mollified by then.

So before I go, I want to share my favourite Christmas songs with you.

Don’t worry – I know many of us are still in “The Little Drummer Boy” challenge, and I will not Rickroll you into losing that here. I expect to be out by Christmas Eve, because I anticipate hearing one version or another of it at the airport. Instead, I will leave you with my list of the only good Christmas songs out there.

Note: Before I start, a reminder that “Bob & Doug’s ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’” is spoken-word art never to be equaled.

First up: “Father Christmas” by The Kinks.

A few fun facts about the song:

• It was Ray Davies’ take on the late-70’s class warfare going on in England.
  • The BBC refused to play it because, as Davies put it, they were an “established act”, and they would only play “edgy” songs by New Wave & Punk bands.
• They tried to play it on their 1977 tour in the US, but were prevented by the headliner Hall & Oates when they shared the bill.
• It’s been covered numerous times, best by Cheap Trick, and most recently by Chris Jericho.
• The B-side was “Prince of the Punks”, a diss-song directed at Cafe Society band leader Tom Robinson after Davies produced Cafe Society’s first album & they blamed him for its weak showing.

Second: “Fairytale of New York”

Fun facts:

• According to Shane MacGowan, the song was a result of a wager made by the Pogues’ producer at the time, Elvis Costello, that the band would not be able to write a Christmas hit single.
• Although some stations bleep the offensive words, the song has never been officially banned, although some DJs have publicly prohibited the song from their shows.
  • Kristy MacColl once changed the words for a live broadcast on “Top of the Pops” to “You’re cheap and you’re haggard”.

Third: “I Wish It Was Christmas Today”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-81pyMUx0U

No, not the Fallon-Sanz version. The Julian Casablancas version.

The AV Club has a pretty good article on the song. I don’t feel like validating Jimmy Fallon.

Lastly, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” by Darlene Love

Anyone who is a Letterman honk knows this song, as she played it on his show 21 times. (Some sweet bastard went and put them all back-to-back, so I’ve chosen that link.) As Paul Shaffer put it to Vanity Fair in 2014,

Dave Letterman, the one thing he has always told me that he hates in rock ’n’ roll is the seasonal novelty record. God help me if I would try to play the “Monster Mash” at Halloween. It was verboten. You can’t do it. But he makes an exception for this song because of the way she sings it.

All of the versions were rehearsed day-of broadcast. The changed the band composition every year – adding instruments or background singers – but the attraction to Letterman was the song and the voice.

Fun facts:

• The most famous cover versions are by U2 (who hired her to be the background vocals), Mariah Carey, and Cher – who was one of the original background singers on the original version from 1963.
• The musicians for the original were The Wrecking Crew, one of the most famous session musicians collectives of the era, alongside The Swampers, Booker T & The MGs, MFSB out of Philadelphia, and Detroit’s Funk Brothers.
• Such is her popularity for the song that SNL got her to sing the lyrics for the Funhouse video, “Christmastime For The Jews”

Sunday Broadcast Maps: (courtesy 506sports.com)

Can you believe we get Saturday football tomorrow? And – on paper – good games! Good-ish? Cromulent? Anyway, that will justify my absence tomorrow night.

With your permission, I’m only going to show the FOX late Sunday window, because only a few of the other games during the day have minimal playoff ramification. Everything else is hot garbage, with fans only attending out of either misguided obligation or the sunk cost fallacy.

Morning games of note:

• CBS:
  • Baltimore @ Cleveland – available in most of the country
  • Pittsburgh @ NY Jets – Pennsylvania & the Tri-State area
    • excluding Philadelphia, who are buying batteries ahead of the afternoon block
• FOX
  • New Orleans @ Tennessee – 90% of the country
    • excluding the rapier parts of Florida that get the Jags game

FOX LATE

█ Dallas @ Philadelphia – Joe Buck, Troy Aikman

█ Arizona @ Seattle – Chris Myers, Daryl Johnston

I will be at the Seahawks game, hoping this isn’t a trap game & they stay even with the Niners, making next weekend a bloodfest both inside & outside C-Link.

Tonight’s sports:

• NHL:
  • Penguins at Oilers – 9:00PM | Sportsnet
• NBA:
  • Wizards at Raptors – 7:30PM | TSN
  • Mavericks at 76ers – 8:00PM | ESPN
  • Pelicans at Warriors – 10:30PM | TSN3
• NCAA:
  • College Bowl:
    • Frisco Bowl – Utah State vs. Kent State – 7:30PM | ESPN2 / TSN2
  • Division III championship game:
    • North Central (Ill.) vs. Wisconsin (Whitewater) – 8:00PM | ESPNU
  • College Wrestling:
    • Oregon State at Nebraska – 7:00PM | FS1
• Contact sports:
  • Wrasslin’:
    • Friday Night Smackdown – 8:00PM | FOX / Sportsnet360
  • MMA:
    • Bellator – Salute to the Troops – from Hawaii – 10:00PM | Paramount

Happy holidays!

See you in the New Year.