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.

Happy New Year!

Please excuse my silence over the last few weeks. I could offer all sorts of excuses, but I won't. You, my loyal readers, deserve the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And now, without shame or hesitancy, I will give it to you:

I was locked in a life-and-death struggle with 2007.

I imagine that this seems to be a joke; on some levels it is. However, there is more than a grain of honesty here. Over the course of the last year, I have had a car stolen, have lost a pet, have been in lockdown in my office because of a crazed gunman, have dealt with stark poverty, and have had to deal with dozens of smaller (albeit equally challenging) setbacks. Frankly, somewhere around the middle of September, it occurred to me that 2007 was doing its absolute best to kill me. I can laugh about it now, having emerged as the clear victor in this power struggle, but it was a pretty disturbing realization, particularly given that I then had to survive for another three and a half months.

Actually, to be honest, I laughed about it in September. Still, on some level, I believed that it was true. And, as every month offered its own surprise disaster, each of which nearly bankrupted us, I started to wonder if my September joke was really all that funny. Still, up until December, I was pretty healthy, and was able to laugh off my own suspicions about the evil plans of 2007. Then, on Christmas Eve, as the year wound to its close and the finish line was in sight, I picked up a brutal little virus that, in the words of Monty Python, opened the sluice gates at both ends. I initially thought that it was food poisoning, and spent most of Christmas day lying in bed and groaning, in between hurried visits to the bathroom. The 26th was better and, by the 27th, I was feeling healthy enough to return to work. Then, on the 29, I got a return of the nasty stomach bug and ran back to the bedroom. As the days went on and I was reduced to a diet of bananas and applesauce, I wondered if 2007 was, indeed, going to get the better of me. On Sunday, just as I was almost beyond caring, I rallied, and was once again able to eat solid food and walk more than a few steps without collapsing from exhaustion.

I'm now feeling a lot better. George, the wife, and I rang out the old year with our wonderful friends Jen and Joey, who were visiting from California. We visited Totonno's pizzeria, chasing the transcendent pizza with some wonderfully nasty Chinese food, locally-brewed beer, and copious amounts of champagne. Feeling flush with my victory over 2007 (and more than a little buoyed by the bubbly), I decided to dance on the grave of the last year, and stood outside the front door with my wife and friends, yelling "Feliz Ano Nuevo, Bitches!" to the world at large. As the salsa music blared and our victorious yells echoed from the tenements around us, I said a silent prayer of thanks for my survival, not to mention the fact that my neighbors were kind enough to refrain from shooting at us.

Today I awoke feeling downright bouncy. I ran all over the neighborhood, picking up breakfast items for the people in my house and generally enjoying the fact that I had survived to see 2008. I have no doubt that this will be a better year than the last, and I hope that your new year is as wonderful as mine!

Happy New Year,

Crankster