Christmas Values

Although I am a liberal, and therefore officially immoral, I have always considered myself a values-based kind of guy. And during this season, when the long, frozen winter nights give me a lot of time to think about my values, I like to consider the things that are really meaningful.

Values are fundamental and basic. They can't be bought or sold, and they're the things that stay with you long after everything else has become meaningless. That's why, even though I don't have a lot of money, I would gladly give it all--every cent--just to watch Horatio Sanz being raped by a bull elephant.

It's not just his utter lack of talent, or his smirking self-satisfaction, or even the fact that he used up one (at least one) space on Saturday Night Live, a space that could have gone to a superior performer. Frankly, Sanz's inability to even perform his way through even the shortest skit without giggling at his own buffoonery has made him the ultimate example of a fat guy sliding through on a jolly stereotype and a high-lipid diet.

Boy, I sure do hate Horatio Sanz.

All of this, however, is a preface to my tale of a true New Year's miracle. While there aren't any performers who I despise as much as Horatio Sanz, I also have a particular cold spot in my lower intestine for the comic stylings of Jimmy Fallon.

One of my favorite moments on Family Guy occurred when Peter beat the crap out of Jimmy Fallon. I know it wasn't the real Jimmy, and that it was animated, but it gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling to watch that self-satisfied overgrown class clown get his comeuppance. I always thought that Jimmy a real-life Zack Morris, a self-obsessed preppie who somehow got lucky enough to land a spot in the middle of SNL. Surrounded by a array of more talented and unique Screech Powers', he couldn't quite hide his smug self-satisfaction, his contemptuous belief that the rest of the world should just love him because he's so damn cute.

This New Year's Eve, however, my friend Joey introduced my wife and I to Fallon's outstanding imitation of Barry Gibb. I don't know what blend of luck, pop culture, Justin Timberlake, and random serendipity combined to make this possible, but Fallon does a truly beautiful job sending up the egomaniacal genius behind so many falsetto tunes. In his scabrous portrayal of grotesque aging seventies self-importance, Fallon touches on transcendence.


Incidentally, if this link doesn't work, just google "barry gibb snl." Really, you've got to check this out. If it fails to get you the first time you see it, wait 24-36 hours and try again.