Caroling Pub Crawl

Tuesday night is the 3rd Caroling Pub Crawl. Once again, we're taking beer and Christmas to the people of Uptown whether they want us or not. Last year, we successfully wassailed and were fed & offered booze by one family, and while I can't promise we'll meet with similar results this year, it should be another spirited celebration of the season. As someone who sings in the key of L, I can testify that singing ability is not required. Christmas sweaters are a positive addition to the event but similarly not required.

We meet at 7 p.m. at the Kingpin and wander from there. The route and stops will be worked out on the fly, but last year we went to Magazine Street and trolled along there through bars and restaurants and that worked pretty well. Kat and I found a house with great Christmas lights that might need some singing.

If you need a little help getting in the mood, here's my Spotify Christmas mix and this year's downloadable Christmas mix. Here's the song list for the latter:
1. O Come All Ye Faithful - Julian Koster's Singin Saw
2. Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time - Sufjan Stevens
3. Happy Sound's Christmas - Happy Sound
4. This Christmas Day - Don Rich
5. I'm Your Christmas Friend - James Brown
6. Black Christmas - The Harlem Children's Chorus
7. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - Lew Charles
8. Little Drummer Boy - Ellis Marsalis
9. Santa's North Pole Band - Line Material
10. Run Rudolph Run - Keith Richards
11. Welcome Christmas - from How the Grinch Stole Christmas
12. The Christmas Song - Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66
13. Deck the Halls - Mirror Image
14. Love for Christmas - the Ebbonaires
15. Funky Funky Christmas - New Kids on the Block
16. It's Christmas Every Day - Hank Thompson
17. Blue Christmas - Tommy Wills
18. Joy to the World - St. Amanita
19. I'll Be Home for Christmas - Wayne King and His Orchestra
20. You're All I Want for Christmas - Brook Benton
21. Good King Wenceslas - John Fahey
22. It Doesn't Often Snow on Christmas - Pet Shop Boys
23. Marshmallow World - Darlene Love
24. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Andre Kostelanetz
25. (It's a) Happy Holiday - The Shells
26. Be There for Christmas - Ledisi
27. Jingle Bells - Marcus Roberts
28. The Christmas Polka - Jim Reeves
29. Merry Christmas, Everybody - Stompin' Tom Connors
30. I'll Be Home for Christmas - Al Green
31. Santa Doesn't Cop Out on Dope - Sonic Youth

My Kind of Merry Christmas

"Christmas songs have to be joyous, even if for all the wrong reasons," John Waters told me in 2004. "They have to be amazing.” I've let that be my guiding logic when I collect Christmas songs for CDs, playlists on Spotify, or this, this year's downloadable Christmas mixtape. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas.

1. O Come All Ye Faithful - Julian Koster's Singin Saw

2. Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time - Sufjan Stevens
3. Happy Sound's Christmas - Happy Sound
4. This Christmas Day - Don Rich
5. I'm Your Christmas Friend - James Brown
6. Black Christmas - The Harlem Children's Chorus
7. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear - Lew Charles
8. Little Drummer Boy - Ellis Marsalis
9. Santa's North Pole Band - Line Material
10. Run Rudolph Run - Keith Richards
11. Welcome Christmas - from How the Grinch Stole Christmas
12. The Christmas Song - Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66
13. Deck the Halls - Mirror Image
14. Love for Christmas - the Ebbonaires
15. Funky Funky Christmas - New Kids on the Block
16. It's Christmas Every Day - Hank Thompson
17. Blue Christmas - Tommy Wills
18. Joy to the World - St. Amanita
19. I'll Be Home for Christmas - Wayne King and His Orchestra
20. You're All I Want for Christmas - Brook Benton
21. Good King Wenceslas - John Fahey
22. It Doesn't Often Snow on Christmas - Pet Shop Boys
23. Marshmallow World - Darlene Love
24. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Andre Kostelanetz
25. (It's a) Happy Holiday - The Shells
26. Be There for Christmas - Ledisi
27. Jingle Bells - Marcus Roberts
28. The Christmas Polka - Jim Reeves
29. Merry Christmas, Everybody - Stompin' Tom Connors
30. I'll Be Home for Christmas - Al Green
31. Santa Doesn't Cop Out on Dope - Sonic Youth

For those who like a more active Christmas celebration, Kat and I will once again lead the third annual Caroling Pub Crawl at 7 p.m., December 13 leaving from The Kingpin (1307 Lyons St.). We hope you'll join us, and as is the case every year, talent is optional.

The Rich at Play

What's wrong with Mick Jagger's Superheavy? I'll start and end by questioning the imagination that went into it. Over at Spotify, I posted a playlist of an alternative version of the album - songs by the same name but by other artists before Jagger, etc. The process took all of nine minutes.

Hold the Line(s)

Today, Peter Finney wrings his hands in The Times-Picayune about the condition of the Saints' offensive and defensive lines. They weren't impressive, but they were my one source of concern going into Thursday's game simply because of the amount of change in both units during a very short pre-season. Our O line has two new bodies in Olin Kreutz and Zach Streif (as a starter), and our front seven on defensive is undergoing major transition, particularly in the first two weeks with Will Smith out. With all that change going on, it didn't surprise me that they didn't play as well as units as they needed to, and I suspect if that game took place a month from now, we'd see a stouter set of lines.

ESPN's Fickle and Had Bad Taste

ESPN has a new boyfriend in the NFC. A few weeks ago, the sports networks was steady on the arm of Mike Vick and all his new hunky pals on the Philadelphia Eagles. Eagles were "The Dream(y) Team" and were obviously ready for the Super Bowl.

After the preseason suggested that the Eagles' offensive line may have trouble protecting Vick and opening holes for Ronnie Brown, ESPN's love has moved to the Atlanta Falcons. This morning, on "Mike and Mike," Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic picked Atlanta to win the NFC South (neither see the Saints even earning a wild card spot in the playoffs!), and Golic has the Falcons going to the Super Bowl.

Later in the morning, Colin Cowherd spoke out against the conventional wisdom that put the Green Bay Packers in the Super Bowl in favor of the Falcons because the Falcons have a very forgiving schedule. The only problem with that analysis is that the Saints have a very similar schedule with two breaks the Falcons don't get. Saints play the Bears in the Superdome while the Falcons have to go to Chicago. The Falcons face one more Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback (one of Cowherd's yardsticks) in Michael Vick when they play the Eagles in a game that's sure to have Twilight-like implications in the battle for ESPN's love, while the Saints play the wounded New York Giants and the boy-next-door Eli Manning.

I'm always surprised by how much statistical information ESPN collects before throwing it all out in favor of the results it wants or the intangibles its narratives.

When Class War Comes, First We Take Their Foam Fingers

When the Saints' pre-season opened Friday, the news was as much the improvements to the Superdome as it was the game. From The Times-Picayune:

"Everything is great," said Jed Gaspard, a season-ticket holder from Eunice who sits in Section 143. "I'm really excited that they spent the money to upgrade it so we can really have a nice facility. It kind of makes you proud coming here. I'm spending about $100 more per game per seat, but it is worth it."

I sit in section 649, and I too was excited when I went to the men's room nearest to my seats in the terrace and saw that the same two-year-old ad for a fantasy football service is still on the wall above the urinals, complete with the swastika that someone drew on a player's arm shortly after it went up. While the dome was upgrading the lower levels to add 3,400 seats, it left upper level graffiti in place for two years running.

I didn't expect the renovations to reach the upper rack, and I'm not disappointed that they didn't. The changes that did affect me, I liked: the significantly widened ramp outside Gate C, what looks like improved lighting on the field. But it felt a bit zeitgeisty when The T-P and all the local news outlets reported on the upgrades as if they were good for whole Who Dat Nation and not simply the most affluent. They now have "bunker lounges" (I guess the dome ran out of money to come up with better names about the same time they ran out of money for steel wool to scrub the graffiti), wider corridors, more and better food and drink options, and more bathrooms. I'm sure the women in the terrace looking forward to a dome dog while standing in the corridors in the terrace while in line for the ladies room will be very happy for them.

Don't Say "Extreme" Unless You Mean It

WWL-870 has dubbed its coverage of the Saints' preseason "X-Treme Camp Coverage." If nobody's on a skateboard or spinning a bike in the air, calling yourself "extreme" simply draws attention to how old and not-extreme you are.

For me, the only thing extreme about WWL's coverage of the Saints is the extreme rage I feel listening to Deke Bellavia ramble. As someone who conducts interviews, I'm irritated by TV and radio sports reporters' tendency to ask a question and feed the athlete the answer in the question. A typical question might be, "What's your approach to this lockout-shortened pre-season? Are trying to just take it one day at a time and give 110 percent?" The Deke version takes that to the "extreme": "What's your approach to this lockout-shortened pre-season? Are trying to just take it one day at a time and give 110 percent? Because I know you're sort of player who just tries to give it his all every day, every snap, and you know that you can't look down the line and overlook any opponent in the NFL. Are you just trying to work on your game and contributing to your unit and letting the chips fall where they may? Because one thing we know about the NFL is that nothing goes as planned, and as soon as you think you know what's going to happen, everything changes."

Needless to say, the cavalcade of inanity prompts cliche-prone interview subjects under the best of circumstances to pull the cliche shell up higher than ever as they address the general subject of training camp, the only thing they could hang on to out of all blather.

Imagination is Reality, Pt. 2

Yesterday I wrote about the Tea Party tendency to assume questions and the absence of information as proof of something malevolent. Yesterday on President Obama's birthday, Rachel Maddow waded into that tendency taken to the extreme - the Birther Movement.

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In that case, the document that we can't each individually empirically verify is taken as something suspicious that can't be trusted. In the Maddow clip, there's footage of Michelle Bachmann touches on exactly that when she says that the one way to verify the birth certificate is to interview the clerk who certified it ... unless he or she was paid off! Okay, the last part's mine, but if you believe everything else birthers believe, why believe that this functionary wasn't paid off?

Of course, the birthers are opening a door no one can get through. If Obama's birth certificate isn't proof of his US birth, whose is? Why should we accept Romney or Bachmann's birth certificates as valid?

Imagination is Reality

If you're a Tea Partier, what now? Enjoy that the sun's a little sunnier and the air's a little airier now that the government's been taught a lesson in fiscal responsibility? I don't think so. This came in the email yesterday in a Tea Party newsletter:

What was meant as a defensive tool to protect our beloved nation may, in the wrong hands become a weapon of manipulation and Constitutional destruction? In the wake of the September 11th 2001 attacks the Bush administration recoiled with an all-encompassing doctrine of legislative action, commonly known as Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20.

Believe it or not, this directive grants broad sweeping power to not only the President of the United States, but also to those appointed to deal with a "Catastrophic Emergency." However, the concept of "Catastrophic Emergency" "Continuity of Government," "Continuity of Operations," while well-conceived, lacks in safe guards.

Consider this: Who decides what a "Catastrophic Emergency" is? What are the parameters and when will a "Catastrophic Emergency" come to an end? The concept of "Enduring Constitutional Government" becomes a moot point when interpreted in the light of the Liberal concepts of the present administration for if the Constitution is a living breathing document it will need enduring care indefinitely.

Just in case all those question marks left you confused, Bush enacted Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20 and the Tea Partiers are concerned that Obama will arbitrarily declare a catastrophic emergency and remake America, presumably as a Socialist Hell. What evidence do we have that the president who starts every negotiation by taking any faintly radical idea of the board will suddenly declare martial law and come for the Tea Partiers, their guns and their tax dollars? The possibility that it might happen. The scenario is absurdly unlikely, but the fact that they can imagine it seems to give the idea the power of certainty.

The Tea Party Needs Your Help To Stop The Obama Regime

Aren't regimes things that we overthrow? I don't understand Obama's desire to work with people who consider Democratic presidents illegitimate and possibly criminal (remember Rush's daily countdown during Clinton's presidency, declaring the number of days America was held hostage?).

In short, will Conservative actions meet the threshold of an open and known danger to the Continuance of Government if the definition of those actions challenge defined the ideals of a small group of powerful men with a socialist agenda?

Impossible, how about this: Will refusing to curb spending be interpreted as just as much of a threat to America as a terrorist or nuclear attack? Will Homeland Security jump into action when they perceive our nation is in danger if we refuse to balance our budget or perhaps if America stops printing money?

Astonishing isn't it? Are there no limits to the power of Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20? Would President Obama brandish such power in the name of saving America and restore U.S. financial institutions in a manner the government becomes the manager of ALL financial transactions?

Why not? The power is before him, why would he NOT grab the power of ultimate control and pronounce salvation by the use of Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20?

Then again, one would have to believe our government and the people who run it are power hungry, agenda driven and of course are willing use existing law to further their plans.

Ridiculous isn't it! Need proof?

Yes! That passage asks nine questions. It doesn't state that anything's actually happening or offer up even a shred of evidence to lend credence to the possibility that Obama will invoke Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20, but the absence of answers is to be taken as confirmation that the takeover is nigh. This is written as if the absence of answers proves the existence of a conspiracy that doesn't want you to know their foul, socialist agenda.

In fact, what we see is the Conservative tendency to imagine a loophole, then assume someone's going to use it because they can't imagine someone not doing so. Anchor babies? Not a problem, but some Republicans want to fight them because they can't understand why countless undocumented immigrants aren't taking advantage of this possibility. Homeland Security Presidential Directive-20 offers the opportunity to enact such sweeping change that they assume Obama must be looking for the pretext to use it because they can't see why anyone would leave such a powerful instrument untouched on the shelf.