till that day love led them astray

"If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." - Alexis de Tocqueville

Eh, it's nothing a little exceptionalism and a massive military arsenal can't fix, right?

Fred Hughes - Don't Let This Happen to Us (from a 1971 single, collected on Let's Boogaloo, Vol. 3, 2006) - The pinnacle of soul perfection.

The Avengers - The American in Me (from a 1979 12"; collected on The Avengers, 1983) - I'm angry because I still care.

something in the air

The wise Saint Burt of Bacharach once said "what the world needs now is love, sweet love," citing a noticible global shortfall in that wonderful (and occasionally painful) state of bliss.

There has been a trend among the cynically hip set to denounce this day's holiday observances as nothing more than an market-driven grab for consumer's cash, but that bit of sour grapes masquerading as "getting wise" fails to consider that there are plenty of people out there who celebrate the meaning of the day without expending large sums of money. It's a perfect opportunity to reflect on things romantic, things that perhaps might have been back-burnered by the hectic schedule of everyday life. (It shouldn't happen, but it does.)

It doesn't need to involve a couple dozen long-stemmed roses or an overpriced shiny bauble. A handmade card made of construction paper and paste (proving again that the skillset I acquired in pre-school is of more daily use than my degree in English Literature) and a spontaneous hug can be just as, if not more, meaningful.

Still, if you want to know if he (or she) loves you so, it's in the kiss....

Firestorm and Killer Frost
(from Crisis on Infinite Earths #1; by Marv Wolfman & George Perez)
Tamsin and Yale
(from Skeleton Key: The Celestial Calendar; by Andi Watson)
Todd "Obsidian" Rice and Damon Matthews
(from Manhunter (2004 series) #18; by Marc Andreyko, Javier Pina, & Fernando Blanco)
Reuben Flagg and Crystal Gayle Marakova
(from American Flagg! #2; by Howard Chaykin)
Alanna and Adam Strange
(from Mystery in Space #80; by Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino, & Murphy Anderson)
Katma Tui and John Stewart
(from Green Lantern #199; by Steve Englehart, Joe Staton, & Bruce Patterson)
Some foolish-looking jerk and a phenomenally patient and wonderful woman
(from the Queen Maura & Bitterandrew 2004 Wedding Special)
Have a happy Valentine's Day, folks.

The Troggs - Love Is All Around (from The Singles A's & B's, 2005) - The one true version. Accept no substitutes.

Circle Jerks - Put a Little Love in Your Heart (from Wild in the Streets, 1982) - A worthy entry in the well-established category of ironic punk covers of decidedly non-punk songs.

Lene Lovich - I Think We're Alone Now (Japanese Version) (from the reissue of the 1978 Stateless LP) - Did I post this before? I can't remember and I'm too lazy to check. It doesn't matter, because we could all use a bit more Lene Lovich in our lives, too.

12 Days of Christmas - Day 4: goofs of the magi

There are a few reasons why Halloween gets an entire month's worth of posts on Armagideon Time and Christmas gets a measly week (and change). The primary explanation is that Halloween's spooky vibe appeals to me more than the retail industry-driven insanity that Christmas has become. There's also the fact that the Yuletide holiday season has long-since bled through the Black Friday (and, oh, how I hate that descriptor for the day after Thanksgiving) boundary, so that candy corn and toxic light-up skulls immediately segue into artificial evergreen trees, NASCAR^TM ornaments, and Christmas music played 24/7 on the local "oldies" (if by the term you mean Billy Joel's body of work and "Muskrat Love") station.

Too much of a good thing is bad enough. Too much of something that is already ambiguous in nature (not so much Christmas, but the foul dust that preys in its wake) is nigh unbearable. I'm hardly a standard bearer for traditions, but there was a natural, comfortable cadence to the flow of fourth-quarter holiday celebrations -- Halloween's ghoulish revels, Thanksgiving's harvest-tide feast, Christmas's whatever, topped off with New Year's clean break. I'm aware of the cui which bono from the present extended yet accelerated arrangement, but the net effect has been to utterly leech whatever charm the season once possessed.

Yes, I know there are movements to reclaim the "true meaning of Christmas," whatever the hell that's supposed to mean, but the omnipresent crush of marketed holiday cheer is capable of insinuating its way through all petty boundaries. Even the tinkle of my piss off the porcelain plays out the tune of Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time," such is the season's insidious, unrelenting ubiquity.

The final reason why I keep the Christmas holiday festivities here limited to a shorter period of time compared to Halloween's is because of the dearth of material, or rather a dearth of material that hasn't already been posted recently elsewhere. Finding unique Halloween-related material was easy, even with a couple dozen other folks out there working in a similar vein. There's a greater latitude for selecting "spooky" -- which encompasses entire genres -- than for Christmas music, especially after I add the "I like enough to post" qualifier and my desire not to poach on others' turf. So no "Christmas Bop" by T. Rex or Oscar the Grouch's sublime "I Hate Christmas" this time round, even though both tracks made the final cut. I won't even bother with The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York," because it's almost a given that the song will occupy at least half the slots on the Hype Machine's Top 50 as the 25th of December draws closer.

I was horrified to discover that The Damned's "There Ain't No Sanity Clause" had already been posted last Monday over at the always excellent Planet Mondo, which I would have known if I hadn't fallen behind in keeping up with my favorite blogs. Sorry about that, PM. Your write up was far superior to mine, if it's any consolation. John over at Punks on Postcards has also put up a rather nifty Christmas Oi! compliation, which I had debated picking up at a used vinyl store back in the day, but the extortionate price and the presence of tracks by Splodge and The Gonads caused my to stay my hand. AM, Then FM, Mostly Ghostly and Wonderful Wonderblog are all presently offering excellent selections of music from Christmases past, and are well worth checking out, as well, because the odds of seeing OOP Perry Como holiday material here are pretty much nil...

Guys in luchador masks working elements of The Chantays' "Pipeline" and Del Shannon's "Runaway" into a surf instrumental version of a holiday standard? That's more my speed, by far.

Los Straitjackets - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (from 'Tis The Season For Los Straitjackets, 2002)

seasonal holiday digression

Today is Thanksgiving. For our readers not blessed with the good fortune of residing in the World's Only Superpower^TM, the holiday commemorates how my Calvinist ancestors managed to survive an entire year in this forsaken part of the globe (through the aid of the native inhabitants of the Massachusetts Bay area), thus cementing their toehold in the New World (so that they could begin the important work of exterminating those who had helped them in their time of need).

Thanksgiving also serves an important role as a dress rehearsal for the tragicomic improv revue that is Christmas, allowing all the principle players to hone their characterizations and determine which grudges, resentments, or other issues they wish to bring to the main event. The venom of familial discord, like fine liquor (which also plays an important role in the process), grows more potent with the passing of time, and a month of ruminations over "what exactly did he mean by that?" can make all the difference between an awkward moment and a full-on, no holds barred scene occurring over the communal dining table.

Being an unapologetic social terrapin myself, I plan to do what I usually do every holiday that involves family gatherings -- drop the wife off so that she can celebrate with her boisterous Hibernian clan, then return home and spend the day in blessed solitude. I most likely will go over the Woburn Highlands and through the city center to my grandmother's house, though, for a short visit. Doing the Right Thing must needs trump my asocial tendencies, after all. I just have to remember to time the trip correctly so as to avoid the traffic nightmare generated by the annual class war by pigskin proxy otherwise known as the Woburn-Winchester game. (As a side note, the Woburn High athletic teams are called the Tanners, a historical nod to the leather industry whose environmental effects are still, despite head-in-the-sand boosterism, still being dealt with to this day.)

After those obligations are taken care of, it's a simple matter of squandering the empty minutes until Maura returns home with a plate of leftovers for me to pick over. (Maybe I'll finally commit to my plan of watching Armored Trooper VOTOMS in its entirety, or perhaps I'll queue up some choice episodes of MST3K in honor of Turkey Days past -- I tend to be more excited about the concept of unobligated time than the use I put it towards.) Then, as our customary coda for the holiday, the wife and I will pop Blast from the Past into the DVD player (a tradition started by Maura; I've long given up trying to make sense of these things), and let the soothing power of swing revival-themed romantic comedy lull us to sleep.

Not a bad way to spend the holiday, actually, and infinitely preferable to this...

Oh my. This isn't going to end well at all. (As if one needed yet another reason to fear legumes...)

The Neighborhoods - No Place Like Home (from a 1980 single; collected on D.I.Y. - Mass Ave - The Boston Scene: 1975-83, 1993) - Fulfilling all your provinicial power pop needs on this New Anglocentric holiday.

Camera Obscura - I Don't Do Crowds (from Biggest Bluest Hi-Fi, 2001) - Not if I can avoid it, and I'm as skilled in avoidance as these Glaswegian indie poppers are at crafting lovely twee-ish pop songs.

America’s right behind you

There are few things worse than being forced to pander to your boss's unnatural Henry Luce fetish. ("Oh, oh, I love it when you talk about the China Lobby, Billy. Don't stop!") I have left more than one job because of similar circumstances.

Another July 4th, another day spent contemplating the dissonance between America in theory and in practice. It shouldn't have be this way; not because I ever assumed the pursuit of a truly egalitarian society was going to be effortless, but because the current roster of issues should be no-brainers in a nation that supposedly prides itself on the ideals of liberty, equality, and opportunity.

Yet we, as a nation, have gotten stuck in the wilderness, repeating hollow catechisms that pay lip service to high ideals while offering insidious qualifiers -- "but not for them." What had once been rooted in hope, in the faith of progress and the inherent (if not ubiquitous) decency of humankind, has sunk its roots deep in the noxious swamp of fear and bigotry...to benefit of all sorts of opportunistic parasites.

Throwing Muses - America (She Can't Say No) (from untitled, 1986) - 4AD says the album is self-titled, but the band stated that it has no title. This is the shit that drives compulsive CD collection organizing types up the wall. Good.

Au Pairs - America (from Sense and Sensuality, 1982) - This track, included on a budget-priced "politics of punk" box set, is what converted Maura into a fan of the band, thus leading me to dust off my collection of their material and fall in love with them all over again.

and I reveal unto you the power and the glory

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I would like to take the opportunity on this most important of days to present to you the greatest song ever.

Better than Loverboy’s “Hot Girls in Love.”

Better than Michael Bolton’s entire discography.

Better than the hipster wankfest that would result from a Lily Allen/Arctic Monkeys/Amy Winehouse collaboration.

Even the glories of the seraphic choir come up short in comparison to its celestial beauty.

And so, without further ado, I bring unto you, my children…

The Greatest Song in the History of Mankind