My Juvenile Christmas List

From the depths of my seventeen-year-old smart-alecky mind, we have an attempt at holiday humor.

Just think! If Santa and his troops invaded an Army base to militarily enforce Peace on Earth!  And what if one of the elves, assigned to pull a missile on its trailer out from its hangar into the open, decided instead to take a nap underneath it.  So what if Santa came in and caught the guy snoozing under the trailer and asked him what the elf was doing!  What would the elf say?

"Just hanging around under the missile tow."

Just think!
 

MA-71 - Joyful Christmas Time

 

            Here is my 2014 Christmas anthology, comprised of songs that make me joyful in all sorts of ways.  You can be “silly joyful” or “reverent joyful,” you know.

01. Joy to the World - Anointed (3:46)

02. I Wonder as I Wander - An Old World Christmas (3:58)

03. Silent Night - Teja Bell (6:00)

04. Feliz Navidad - The Rubber Band (2:48)

05. Away in a Manger - Nat King Cole (2:01)

06. Hark, the Herald Angels Sing - Herb Avery (4:38)

07. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - Bing Crosby and Judy Garland (2:46)

08. Feliz Navidad - Sly's Alter Ego (1:44)

09. Carol Medley - The Swingle Singers (3:04)

10. Hark! - Claymation Christmas Celebration (3:35)

11. Joy to the World - Classics for Joy, Carols of Christmas (2:46)

12. Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming - Robert Shaw & Atlanta Chorus (2:26)

13. Silent Night - Robert Fripp & Apollo 8 (3:03)

14. Welcome Christmas - How the Grinch Stole Christmas (3:30)

15. Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Joy Electric (2:12)

16. Blue Christmas - Denny Brownlee as Porky Pig (1:59)

17. The First Noel - An Old World Christmas (4:04)

18. Cleaning Man Christmas - The Cleaning Man (4:27)

19. What Child Is This? - The Rubber Band (4:38)

20. Joy to the World - The Philadelphia Orchestra (1:54)

21. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel - Robert Shaw & Atlanta Chorus (4:14)

22. Joy! - Claymation Christmas Celebration (2:34)

23. What Christmas Is All About - A Charlie Brown Christmas (1:03)

24. Away in a Manger - Joan Baez (1:55)

25. Silent Night - The Swingle Singers (3:45)

            If you haven’t seen the Claymation Christmas Celebration, then you have missed a lot of fun.  The soundtrack is full of fun and wonder, too.  As you will hear, it contains some joyous-solemn music, along with some silliness.

            The Rubber Band is a Beatles Tribute Band that’s been around since 1979.  I think you’ll like their arrangements on Tracks 4 and 19.

            Track 13 is an overlaying of spoken broadcasts from Apollo 8 astronauts with a Robert Fripp "Frippertronics" version of “Silent Night.”

            There used to be a little radio station in Oklahoma City called KOKF -- site with some history here.  It went off the broadcast airwaves in 2006.  You can now hear it online at 91 Online.  Anyway, during broadcast days one of the sponsoring businesses was a janitorial service.  Their tongue-in-cheek mascot was The Cleaning Man (who sounded a lot like Dudley Do-Right).  And, one Christmas time, we were treated to “A Cleaning Man Christmas,” which I am thrilled to share with you here. 

            The Swingle Singer tracks are from an album unreleased on this side of the pond.

            Track 25 is from a stupendous 1966 album by Joan Baez called Noel.  The arrangements were by Peter Schickele of PDQ Bach fame.

            The Track List moves back and forth from solemn to happy to silly and back again, several times.  I hope listening to this compilation lets you celebrate the greatest gift of all, God’s love, given through his son.  

MA-71 - Joyful Christmas Time

See You in December!

2014 Blog-o-Ween Art Sources

Interesting Night

Interesting Night

by Mark Alfred

August 3, 2014

Well I was playin' strip poker with Frankenstein

And I had about all that I could stand

'Cause he was down to his union suit

And I didn't want to win another hand, Lawd Lawd

     I didn't want to win another hand

     What a night, oh what an interesting night

     What a sight, what an uncomfortable sight

Well, I went skinny-dippin' with Dracula

Divin' off an old rowboat

I kept showin' off different strokes

But he only did the Dead Man Float, that's all

     He'd only do the Dead Man Float

     What a night, what an interesting night

     What a sight, he was fish-belly white

Well, I was playin' tag with the Wolf Man

By a river that rushed like a flood

It was fun but I kept flinching

Every time I was "it," he drew blood, that's right

     When I was tagged, he would always draw blood

     What a night, what an interesting night

     I couldn't hide, 'cause the moon was so bright

And the mummy and I saw a sad movie

I wasn't too happy because

When the story would get too weepy

He would cry 'til it gummed up his gauze

     It was such a night, oh what an interesting night

     Up came the lights, and he was stuck in his seat so tight

Oh such a night, was it real or a dream?

I'm gonna lay off the pepperoni pizza next Halloween

 

A Scary Note from a King-Sized Sweetheart

While riffling through some old magazines out of the attic, I had come to my stack of Scary Monsters. Now online.  When I came to the December 1994 issue, I smiled and hurriedly showed darling Joyce what I’d found -- a fan letter to the mag from my dear and departed friend, Mark Barragar!

You can find my original memorial farewell salute here, with scans of some photos and from his memorial service.

You can find a re-post, with a current link to his “King-Size King” Elvis CD, here.

I don’t think that I paid attention to this letter at the time.  But here it is!

BTW if you don’t know about the Count, his Facebook page is here.  The theme from his TV show, “Nightmare,” is the last cut on this year’s Hallowe’en music compilation, posted on the second of this month.

Farewell, big guy!