Michael saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus

Obviously numerous versions of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" have been recorded since Jimmy Boyd first did in 1952, but the best clearly was the one performed by the Jackson 5 on their 1970 Christmas Album.

It's not merely the pop mastery of the group or the production, but the way young Michael says just before the solo:
"I did, I really did see Mommy kissing Santa Claus, and I'm gonna tell my dad."

Why does that put it above all others? Let's examine.

More outdated children's shows observations: Daniel Tiger wears no pants!

On Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood the eponymous lead character is an anthropomorphic tiger living in a Mr. Rogers-inspired town with other anthropomorphic animals—Katarina Kittycat, O the Owl—and with human characters. The stories give lessons with little songs about topics like compromise and dealing with frustration. As previously noted, Our son finds it enjoyable.

One of Daniel's friends is Miss Elena, who it's shown has mixed race parents. So the show seems progressive in ways like that.

However, there is something that I notice that seems less congruous with that sort of theme. Now, I concede analysis of a show with such a clear distance from verisimilitude is utterly futile, but if nothing else we live in the era of utterly futile analysis so here goes:

Attention shoppers: It's the Ramones

I understand that everything three decades old or older is considered pretty anodyne from a cultural standpoint, regardless of how controversial it may have seemed in its heyday.

Still, to hear (as I did on a recent evening) the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated" playing in a Vons grocery store seems like something that should hold at least a tinge of being a tiny bit taboo.


There are other Ramones' songs where the lyrics are such that your grandmother wouldn't balk while shopping ("I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend"—another of their "I Wanna…" tracks), but "Sedated" is not sedate enough to be acceptable for all contexts.

I'm not suggesting that most people are actually paying any sort of attention to the music playing over the public address while shopping; it's merely filling in the background sound so it isn't eerily quiet. I get that. I'm among the tiny minority who notices such things at all. I know.

Getting grungy with 'Fresh Off the Boat'

In a recent episode of the new sitcom Fresh Off the Boat ("Success Perm"), the main character, Eddie, sees his cousin when the family visited. This cousin had turned him on to N.W.A. years earlier (the show takes place in 1995), which led to Eddie's love of rap. So when the cousin showed up, now into grunge, puts in a CD by Live and plays "Lightning Crashes," Eddie thought it was crap. (Eddie was right.)

The cousin dismissed Eddie's criticism as him being too immature to appreciate the emotion of grunge.

Father's Day and the unexpected Kimye moment

After a certain celebrity was ostensibly charged with "breaking the internet" last week I'm reminded of this incident from several months ago...

Back on Father's Day we went to breakfast at our usual spot (because I am a person who prefers familiarity) and although our infant son was in the car seat (in those last weeks before he outgrew it) he wasn't sleeping through things (as he had been doing back then when we went out to eat). But that's not the noteworthy thing here.

Because he was awake we didn't cover the seat with a blanket and thus he was somewhat visible to other patrons. That's not a big deal in general. We'd looked at others' babies over the years so it was only fair that others could take him in.

After we got seated in our booth a woman (not someone we recognized) came over. The canopy of the seat was extended so she asked to see him and so we acquiesced and pulled the canopy back. She remarked on his cuteness and being a handsome boy, and we offered the polite gratitude to the compliments.

X-Men: Days of Future Cologne

Back in my youth comic books drew some level of dismissal by the larger culture, but now of course "nerd culture" is mainstream. That acceptance seems like a step in the right direction, but those steps can go too far.

With the movie X-Men: Days of Future Past coming out soon the commercials are running heavily. However, yesterday I saw one that proved to be a cross-promotion… with Axe Body Spray—perhaps the epitome of douchebaggery. And while the distinctions were somewhat nebulous in those days of past (when only the nerds would know the X-Men story on which the movie is based) such products would never be explicitly marketed to such a demographic. I'm not saying there was no crossover between nerds and douchebags—of course there were was—but that was not considered a desirable group for advertisers.

It's enough to root for the Sentinels to wipe out everyone; neither humans nor mutants deserve to survive in a world where would happen.

We need to send someone back in time to stop this...

No (superhero) justice for the ladies

While briefly online this morning I noticed on FB a bit of a rant by a friend where she lambasted the paltry appearance of Wonder Woman in the new Justice League merchandise at Target. (I presume she sought items with the Amazon princess for her daughter, but heck, her aim may have been for herself.)

On the site was the picture above of the JL featuring only Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and the Flash, leaving out WW altogether (but if one scrolls all the way over to the right one will find her, as shown below). My friend understood why (marketing towards boys), but still lamented that a strong female character couldn't be included with the other heroes. Would that really be so damaging to our nation's boys?

12/12/12: Finally, it's over

It happened first January 1, 2001, then again February 2, 2002, and throughout the first dozen years of this century we have endured something over and over one day each year, and that all comes to an end (until next century) today.

This twelfth day of the twelfth month of the year ending in the number twelve is here and people have their last opportunity in our lifetimes to make a big deal about this repetitive numeric triptych. Get it out of your system, folks, because whether you place any importance on days like 1-1-01, 2-2-02, etc., or not, I think we can all agree: We've had enough.

We need another 88 years for this to have any renewed novelty.

Replacement official spelling

Tonight on SportsCenter there were some highlights of a pre-season NFL game where the officials calling the game were replacements, being that the regular refs are out due to a dispute with the league. After that they cut to analyst Merril Hoge to comment on how those replacement refs likely would do when the regular season begins in a week.

However, I was distracted by the lower portion of the screen, which appeared to have been typed by a replacement graphics person:

Stereo-typing

The sad reality is, in the eyes of others, every minute of every day we are all, on some level, representing some perceived group based on the way we look or the thing we're doing or some other means of being observed.

All of the time we are undoubtedly fucking it up for others with whom we share some ostensible quality, without even realizing.

(The Predictable) Fast food Firestorm: Chick-fil-A'd

Yesterday the fast food chain Chick-fil-A was the site of counter protests to the protests that erupted in the wake of remarks made recently by company president Dan Cathy regarding his strict views on traditional marriage, which was leapt upon by activists and then by politicians claiming the chain would be unwelcome, and then that leapt upon by opposing pundits who made Wednesday "Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day."

So, in short, it's the standard backlash-and-then-backlash-to-the-backlash sequence for just about anything these days where anyone could have a strong opinion one way or the other, with the typical surfeit of media outlets turning it into a kerfuffle because that's what they do.

We're never happier than when we're up in arms about something.

Something I must share with you

The other day I saw something posted by a friend, which was a graphic with the text "I always wanted the power to read minds, then I joined Facebook and got over it."

It's nothing new to suggest the various online outlets allow for no shortage of "over-sharing" where a fair number of thoughts that perhaps would have been better kept to oneself get aired in a public (or at least semi-public) forum. It seems pretty clear that genie is out of the bottle, and short of unplugging the entire internet we're not going back to some world where that isn't the norm. Obviously that is throwing the baby out with the bathwater, for a problem that is only a problem if one chooses to engage in the social media/blog/comments realm. One can turn off one's devices or not go to particular sites (or not scroll down to the comments section) to avoid that if one so wishes.

The thing is: We don't.

Asshats at the movies

I've finally figured out how it works: There's a secret union of asshats who must send at least one representative to every movie we see in the theater, who will sit in the row behind us and talk during the film.

This afternoon it seemed like we were off the hook, but then 30 minutes into The Amazing Spider-Man he and (I must presume) his girlfriend finally arrived. We suspect they were stoned, and that would explain their tardiness.

I'm not sure if there's any sort of administrative body for the union to whom I should report this, but I'd imagine that sort of indulgence is not only tolerated but probably encouraged. But it is worth noting that when we moved to another row your asshat didn't follow us, so he was too out of it to fulfill his annoying duties to the fullness implied by your implicit credo.

Just FYI.

Broken news

About CNN's rush yesterday to be the first to report the Supreme Court's ruling about the Affordable Care Act, declaring the individual mandate initially unconstitutional and not getting around to revealing that the justices actually voted to allow it as a tax for seven minutes:

That's the kind of crackerjack reportage that will keep me not watching CNN.

Or Fox News. Or MSNBC.

And the way journalists on NPR kept talking about how they themselves did not see this result coming rather than about the story itself show why I don't support my local public radio station either.

Attention media: You don't have to make it so easy for The Daily Show to make fun of you.

House Hunters in the Outhouse

My wife and I are people who keep the TV on more than we should. Allow me to concede that right up front. We watch (as in, actively choose to pay attention—or as close to that as anyone does in this era of Twitter and iPads and the other diversions that can co-exist with TV viewing) a fair number of shows, but there's also times when we put something on that's mostly just background—well, more pseudo-background, as it can prove to be something that gets as much attention as the shows we actively sought (and probably recorded) but without us having the specific intention of devoting ourselves to it in any way. It's something to have on while, say, making dinner, or cleaning up after dinner, or after going to bed as something that won't be disturbing and where it doesn't matter if we fall asleep part way through the episode.

Over the past couple months we've switched over to making HGTV that just-throw-on channel. People buying houses or fixing up houses or designing houses is innocuous enough to not be disturbing, but can still be compelling enough to sometimes make us back up and watch the beginning again if it gets interesting later. And we figure it might help motivate us to get back on the hunt for a property and stop renting.

Woo, Kings fans, woo

Last night the Kings won the Stanley Cup championship*, the team's first NHL title in its existence. Angelinos were thrilled. They were not, however, eloquent.

It's one thing for fans at the game to be reveling in a way that limits their responses when reporters stick a microphone in their faces to "woo!" or something that deep. It's another thing when they call up the local oldies station, presumably sit on hold, and then when they finally get on the air and they have nothing more than "woo!" paired perhaps with stating the obvious (e.g., "Kings are the champs!"). While the enthusiasm is commendable, and the sentences uttered are factual, it does seem like one might wish to take a moment to consider what one would say before dialing the radio station.

Democracy inaction... in action

Today was California's primary election, and aside from the pointlessness of voting for an already-decided presidential candidate there were a number of local races and a couple state-wide propositions on the ballot. They're expecting low turnout at the polling places, and as usual that's considered cause for despair among those who report on such things and those who pay attention to those who report on such things. If only 35% of eligible voters bother to cast a ballot that's viewed as a bad sign for democracy.

While I understand that sort of sentiment, and as hard-fought as were battles in the distant past to get everyone the right to vote, I also think in a state this large, getting roughly one out of three to do anything is phenomenal, and to be dispirited about that is probably holding the population to a standard that's unrealistic in this day.

The futility of surveys

On the Political Gabfest they cited a phone survey conducted last year where Americans were asked whether they would vote for a theoretical presidential candidate who had a specific non white heterosexual Christian male aspect. If the person were qualified but were African American, or Latino, or gay, or atheist, etc., would that prevent voting for that candidate. And the results apparently were such that only 94% responded they would vote for a qualified black candidate—that there were 6% who would admit in a non-anonymous survey to another person on the phone that no matter what they'd never vote for someone on that racial basis. As an aside, the host pondered aloud who, in 2012, says that openly?

How dragon boating changed my mind

Recently I happened upon an episode of a show on the Cooking Channel called Easy Chinese: San Francisco. The host was preparing seafood down on the pier, but in the segment I saw a woman was standing next to her wearing a jersey with the words "Diesel Fish" on it.

I didn't recognize the woman, but I recognized the jersey. Diesel Fish is a Bay Area-based dragon boat racing team. I didn't need the host's introduction (I was able to rewind the show to see the segment from the beginning) to tell me that; I knew it from the years I was on a dragon boat team here in Southern California, and we'd see Diesel Fish at tournaments (both when they'd come south and when we'd head north)

The sport of dragon boat racing is much bigger around San Francisco, and being of Chinese origin it's not surprising that it would be included in such a show. Also, I can say from my years of experience that dragon boaters enjoyed eating almost as much as racing (or perhaps at times even more), so selecting the team as ones who would appreciate the food was also apropos.

"Black Friday"

People may think "Black Friday" is named for how the sales put the stores' ledgers "in the black," but really it's named for the darkness that emerges from sleep-deprived shoppers in the wee hours of the morning (or perhaps even late hours of the evening on Thanksgiving itself), when violence seems perfectly justifiable against one's fellow shoppers as long as it's in the pursuit of bargains.

One can only hope this proves a ritual catharsis of sorts that gets it out of their system to allow for an actual period of peace on earth during the remainder of the holiday season.