O Holy Hell

Photo courtesy of brainwaveweb.com.

Christmas music. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. Today, at a safe remove from the event, Jeff addresses the auditory challenge -- CLH

O Holy Hell
By Jeff Fitzgerald


I love Christmas, I really do. I love it even in spite of the crass overcommercialization, the hackneyed TV specials, and the current PC battle to eradicate any semblance of Christianity in society, up to and including Mexican guys named Jesus.

I love Christmas even though I worked in retail for many years. Nothing will beat the holiday spirit out of you more thoroughly than spending 84 hours a week in a store with stressed holiday shoppers, overworked employees, and worst of all, the insipid and incessant Christmas songs piped in through the overhead speakers.

It isn’t so much the idea of Christmas music, of which I’m generally in favor. It’s the kind of holiday music that gets piped into the stores (and, in my later career, onto car lots). The same small handful of shopworn tunes, done and redone so many times they now exist as a vague homeopathic essence of themselves.

It is a corollary to Warhol’s 15-minutes-of-fame dictum that everyone, during that quarter hour in the spotlight, will make a Christmas album. Every Top Forty pan flasher, every minor TV celebrity, every C-list movie star who honestly believes that he or she is more of a singer than an actor (and not much of either, usually). Hell, these days, even a YouTube viral sensation famous for playing “Super Freak” on a nose flute will have a go at “Jingle Bell Rock” before the last seconds of fame tick off the clock.

Christmas, in its secular form, has been about tradition since at least the 18th century. This was, of course, after the Puritans banned the celebration of Christmas in New England because it gave people an excuse to make merry. Because if anything pissed off the Puritans, it was the thought of people somewhere having fun. Tradition comes from doing the same things more or less every year, and the American experiment allowed us to mix and match bits of other cultures’ traditions and incorporate them into our own. We took the Christmas tree from Germany, Santa Claus from 4th century Lycia (now part of Turkey—or at least it was the last time I checked on it), and getting drunk and starting a fight with the in-laws from the Irish.

By repeating these small rituals year after year, we soon developed a coherent American version of Christmas. Borrowing richly from our European heritage, we took almost everything from the Old Country and Americanized it. The lowly ham, eaten by the farmer class in England who couldn’t afford delicacies such as turkey or goose, came to my beloved Commonwealth of Virginia and became the decadent Smithfield country ham. Various versions of St. Nick and Father Christmas were amalgamated into Santa Claus, an altruistic and supernatural giver of gifts and pitchman for a magical sugar water made in Georgia.

It wasn’t long before these traditions were incorporated into our popular music. Americans came together and longed for chestnuts roasted on an open fire, even in places where they would be more likely to eat boiled peanuts or pecan pie. We didn’t know what figgy pudding was, but we wanted some, and we wanted it RIGHT GAHDAMNED NOW! We rooted for Rudolph and were fans of Frosty. We became aware that Santa Claus knew when we were naughty and sometimes guiltily listened for a telltale burp from too much Coca-Cola to give away the spying elf. Even those of us who had never even seen a horse-drawn open sleigh pictured ourselves laughing all the way, in spite of the bitter cold and horse flatulence. We swore to be home for the white Christmas of our dreams, because we knew it would be a blue Christmas without us. We saw mommy kissing Santa Claus, and were prepared to tell Child Protective Services about it in case of divorce proceedings, or recover the memory for our therapists in case we had daddy issues that caused us to pierce our noses and date assholes later in life.

And all that was merry and bright, until everybody who thought--true or not--that they could carry a tune in a dump truck, started rehashing the same small handful of classics over and over until even deaf people were sick to death of them. A radio station could go a whole day playing nothing but different renditions of “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire).” And it feels like some of them actually do.

If there is an upside to the digital revolution which has thrown the hubristic too-long-monolithic music business into a panic (and also, unfortunately, is right now screwing the artists even harder than the record labels ever did), it is that we are free to choose what we do and don’t listen to. I have satellite radio in my car and uncountable options at home through the miracle of broadband. I don’t watch network TV, except for sports, so I don’t have to risk hearing annoying pop on some lame sitcom or warmed-over drama that wasn’t good enough for cable. I have become, as so many have these days, an island unto myself, at least as far as the import end of it goes. Nothing comes on my island without a specific invitation.

But this time of year, it is virtually impossible to avoid the tsunami-strength wave of the same damned Christmas songs. Whenever something new manages to sneak into the lineup, such as Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” or Run-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis,” it is quickly played ad nauseam until we’re just as sick of it as “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.” Elmo and Patsy, a plague on both your houses.

It is just possible, though, that the yearly musical crime wave of overplayed Christmas songs does serve some purpose. As I said, we are increasingly becoming islands unto ourselves; even the most time honored traditions are fading in the Age of The Perpetual Now. Perhaps there’s adequate magic left in Christmas that this inescapable torrent of holiday-themed corporate detritus can knit the generations together just long enough for us to remember the whole e pluribus unum thing. Now more than ever. Because if the terrifying ordeal of Roseanne Barr squawking her way through “Santa Baby” can’t bring us together, then all hope truly is lost. 

Sticks and Stones and Christmas Jeer

Meet our newest contributor to Jazz (Jazzers Jazzing), Jeff Fitzgerald, photographed here at the Virginia Craft Brewers Fest, tasting--what else--a craft beer brewed somewhere in Virginia. You could reasonably ask if there isn't a more appropriate photo for introducing Jeff. The answer is, nothing is more appropriate.

Jeff Fitzgerald has talent that can inspire jealousy in other writers—not all writers, just the good ones—and he’s one of the few who can make me actually laugh out loud (not simply LOL). He lives in Roanoke, Virginia, where he writes about music as well as topics like Southern (as in Dixie) cooking, in a way that makes me want to grab a tenor saxophone in one hand and plate of barbecue and coleslaw in the other, and commence to shouting. Here in his debut piece for Jazz (Jazzers Jazzing), he renders his pithy take on the serious topic of Christmas jeers, the newly fashionable trend among hipster killjoys and thin-skinned libertines. – CLH

Sticks and Stones and Christmas Jeer

By Jeff Fitzgerald

We live in contentious times, here in the land of purple mountains majesty and fruited plains (whatever the hell that means). People who wish to divide us into querulous, perpetually offended microgroups that can be easily manipulated, have been chipping away at us for decades. And they've used our primary form of communication, language, to do so.

They've weaponized speech for their own ends, turning almost every word into a “microaggression” or a “trigger event.” They've played upon most everyone's desire not to deliberately hurt someone's feelings, and used it to create subgroups upon subgroups of victims. It’s a microaggression towards me, as a lefthander, when someone uses the word “right” instead of “correct?” Of course not, don't be silly.

Which is the whole point. Let us all take a step back for a moment and get over ourselves. Remember that playground rhyme, which our parents and our teachers (those of us who are of a certain age, of course) taught us? Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Call me whatever you want. Call me a fat, crippled, crazy bastard. Call me a bubba, redneck, hillbilly, or a grit. Doesn't bother me. I'm a grown man, after all. If I let stuff like that bother me, then I give someone else power over me. It's that simple.

So let's fight back at these divisive, censorial, would-be martinets. But let's do so with a smile, to let them know they can't get to us no matter how they try. This time of the year, if you should wish someone a Merry Christmas and they get all huffy and indignant and accuse you of forcing your religion* on them, just smile and say:

"Please, I didn't mean to offend you. If I had meant to offend you, I would have told you to go ____ yourself. Know the difference." Then, go on about your day with a song in your heart.

---

* In my experience with the Jews, Muslims, and Hindus I've met, they do not take offense at being wished a Merry Christmas, and take it in the spirit in which it is offered. And I don't mind being wished a Happy Hanukkah or Eid Mubarak in return. I just smile genuinely and say "Thank you," glad to have made a human connection.

A Few Thoughts on Christmas--the Agony and the Ecstasy

Central Park, Manhattan, NYC. Photo courtesy of centralpark.com

You may have noticed that I introduced a new contributor to Jazz (Jazzers Jazzing) a few weeks ago, Jon Hendrickson. There are a few other writers I will be publishing here as well, so from now on you will see a byline accompanying each story—including my own, since it will now be necessary to distinguish one writer from the next. Anything you see with no byline is mine, prior to the arrival of these new writers and dating back to the beginning in 2008. The bylines will also help you to search the website for articles by each contributor by simply entering the writer’s name in the search field in the upper left-hand corner of the webpage—it’s the little box with the magnifying glass icon, which has apparently become the universal symbol for searching, though I must tell you that the last time I went shopping for a real magnifying glass (CD liner notes are often printed in a microscopic 4- or 5-pt. typeface) it took some detective work to find one. Said search box sits immediately to the right of Google Blogger’s little orange logo.

Okay, so now you know that there are going to be bylines on future articles, other people’s and my own.

The other thing to know is that we’re going to spread our wings a little bit. All the writers who contribute here have actual lives they are leading, which means they do other interesting things each day in addition to avidly listening to music. This is something jazz fans understand better than, say, beat box fans. Not that there’s anything wrong with beat box. If you see an article on wine tasting, or an interview with an eminent expert on the differences between South Carolina barbecue and North Carolina barbecue, don’t pass it up. Be assured, at some point in the article the writer will tie the barbecue in with some killer saxophone arpeggios he/she was listening to whilst sipping a glass of merlot or chewing the last bite of a barbecued rib. -- CLH

A Few Thoughts on Christmas

By Carl L. Hager

Christmastime is one of my favorite times of year. I’m like a lot of people that way. But like a lot of those people, if I am called upon to explain why, despite the pagan gluttony and the greedy commercialism that feeds it, my answer gets a little complicated. It’s similar to my answer in explanation of why I think George Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, a thoroughly composed piece of music written by a Jew from New York with only a single clarinet glissando that offers any semblance of an opportunity to improvise, is one of the great jazz compositions of all time. But both are true.

Yes, Christmas is one of my favorite celebrations. I’m a fairly liberated and liberal person, in the sense that I am open to many views and beliefs, and enjoy the company of the people who hold them. That’s not a political statement, except in the broadest sense—fixated political partisanship is the precise opposite of liberalism (conservatism, too), and while “libertarianism” comes close to the original concept, even it is an ideology often used as a shield for a kind of dimwitted moralistic autism.

Christmas is a favorite time for me for the simple reason that it can be, and is, celebrated with equal enjoyment by all the above, without any sense of obligation to do anything else.

Christmas is undeniably a religious holiday. But it is unlike any other religious holiday in the world in its ecumenism. Christmas’s unpopularity among militant atheists is due to this fact only—the more people enjoy the holiday, the more miserable life becomes for the grinches. Even a religious agnostic or a person with a mild case of philosophical atheism can be witnessed laughing it up at a company Christmas party. Christmas is so ubiquitous and so widely celebrated around the world that it has become synonymous with everyday expressions of kindness and consideration, like brotherly love or charity. It is so powerful a force that it has brought about spontaneous truces between warring armies and navies, and even gets credit for much that it has really only inspired. That’s the nature of its simple doctrine of peace on earth and goodwill to men.

The true meaning of Christmas—a hotly debated topic every year in the Western world—produces thousands upon thousands of conclusions, but ultimately ends in a toast and a glass of eggnog liberally seasoned with brandy and good wishes, wherever the debate has occurred and regardless of the religious faiths of the debaters. It happens every year, from Boston to London to Cairo. Even in New York. Christians themselves come in many colors and guises, and very few agree completely on the actual significance of the holiday that originally began as a pagan celebration of the winter solstice, a festival so popular that the various factions of the Catholic church appropriated it as the logical time to celebrate the birth of Jesus. But just like any other birthday party, EVERYBODY was and is invited, anyone who promises to behave. God bless us, everyone, as the wise young Tiny Tim advised.

When I was growing up, my two best friends in the neighborhood were Jews. Both attended Friday night services at the synagogue, and I often went with one or the other of them. Both also attended Hebrew school in preparation for their bar mitzvahs. I didn’t attend these classes, feeling quite unprepared to be preparing for an exclusively Jewish manhood, even though the rabbi was a heroic example. My parents were the most religiously tolerant people I’ve ever known, and their response to all this was to get me a sports coat and tie so that I could dress right for these occasions. Both had been raised as standard-issue North American Protestants, but both also thought religious persecution was what the original Plymouth colonists had braved the icy Atlantic waters in tiny boats to escape, and that religious freedom is what they had come this far expecting to find. My parents didn’t talk it, they believed it. So when I was 12 years old, I was a Protestant-Jew. But the point salient to this discussion is that both of my Jewish neighborhood friends celebrated Christmas each year. Not in the same way I did—with a houseful of Swedish Lutherans in south Minneapolis, where my father’s parents and all the extended family gathered each Christmas Eve beneath three feet of snow—but in their own individual manners. Because as anyone paying attention knows by now, Christmas means something different to whoever is celebrating it. Like jazz is to music (the worn-out question, “What is Jazz?” is best answered with “What isn’t Jazz?”), in addition to being a religious holiday, Christmas is the most all-inclusive, all-welcoming, I-came-to-play holiday of the year.

Nearly every Jew I’ve known since I was young celebrates Christmas. They celebrate Chanukah, of course, but on Christmas they celebrate forgiveness for the same sins they are lamenting—as does every Mormon, every Scientologist, every Baptist and every Pentacostalist. Contrary to the iconic Red Ryder-obsessed writer’s rendition of the holiday in A Christmas Story, even many American Buddhists celebrate Christmas. Why do you think they keep their wonton soup ready for the diasporic Christmas revelers? But the important point is that participation in the celebration isn’t mandatory. You are not fined or shot or beheaded for not celebrating it. Christmas is a day off from the madness of the world. It’s a day to love one another despite all the reasons not to.

One of my dearest friends is, at once, the least religious and most spiritual person I know. For years he did nothing out of the ordinary on Christmas, aside from enjoying a long weekend and a winter’s nap. Then one day, one of his daughters had a child. Next thing you know, his other daughter had a child. Christmas became a holiday for him. It was about other people all along.

What makes me think of him is that I go through the same emotional curve myself, every year. The agony and the ecstasy. The personal evolution from non-believer to believer, non-celebrator to celebrator. Just about this time each December, some asshole in Washington, D.C., decides to makes his or her ego more important than letting every congressman and White House official go home and cool off for a few days. Or some psychopath in Pakistan gives a few of his psychopath friends some pills and convinces them that killing schoolchildren will bring them closer to… (fill in the blank). Every year, I know I need to celebrate Christmas more than I need anything else on earth. And every year I go through the same brutalizing experience of convincing myself that I need it, deserve it, can afford it, etc.

Well, I made it all the way through again this year. To those of you who need a reason to enjoy Christmas, let me suggest an approach illustrated by Woody Allen, a jazz clarinetist and jazz fan, in his film Manhattan: