Terrace Tale

Well, hello there!


I'm rolling right through the season, having just returned from an early Christmas with my parents and siblings. Had a fantastic time and worked on a special follow up to a post I did earlier this year. But that's for a later date! Instead of that mysterious thing, I want to tell you about an underrated, overlooked Xmas episode from the Simpsons, Miracle On Evergreen Terrace.

Broadcast back in 1997, this episode from season nine is the kind of episode that hits the sweet spot for me. It's not too cloying, not to irreverent and dismissive. It falls right into the pocket of an episode wherein Xmas is a part of the plot, but not the center of the story, followed by a forced special moment. So let's break it down, eh?

Christmas Eve is ending and Bart devises an ingenious way to beat the system - when Marge confiscates all alarm clocks in the house, thereby nixing any chance of waking up and opening presents early, he chugs water like a dying man. His subsequent dream sequence is hilarious and dead on for those horrible nights where you wake up and stumble to the bathroom, by the way. So Bart is the first to rise and opens a present. When this radio controlled toy goes off the rails and causes a small fire, the tree and all the presents melt. Panicking, Bart quickly disposes of the evidence and tells the family they were robbed. Heartbroken and crestfallen, the family doesn't know what to do. Homer hits the guilty, sneaking subconscious urge on the head: "Can *sob* we *sniff* skip *sob* church?" We've all been there.

So Kent Brockman does a feel-good human interest piece on the family and the town opens their hearts and wallets. The Simpson clan make off like bandits. Bart's ball of lies, however, begins to crumble, and when the family finds out what happens, they struggle to maintain the facade. From there on out it's your classic series of misadventures and half-heart conceits, but it's pretty damn funny. It all leads to the townspeople stealing everything in the Simpson family home. Heartwarming stuff.

I love this episode - it's been a staple of my holiday viewing, both for the general plot and the fact that it doesn't play out like your typical Christmas episode. It's out in several forms, including a Christmas collection, single disc release and on iTunes, as well as less reputable places online. Just sayin'. Take a look and see if you get the same strangely fresh take on Christmas that I did from this old and forgotten gem. Xmas is coming, kids.

High Pitched Noises

Yo.


Xmas Xceptions. Let's do this.


How about a thing that revamps a classic? Sound good? Cool. This may not curry favor with some readers, but I actually am a sucker for the Chipmunks song 'Christmas Don't Be Late'. I don't even know how this happened, to be honest. I think it just happened to be on a holiday collection my mom had and I picked it up through osmosis. My brothers and I used to have a good laugh over how ridiculous it was. Somehow it grew on me and now I find myself singing along when that insipid piece of strangeness, made by one guy back in 1958, comes on the radio. What makes it more palatable is an equally obscure cover of the novelty song by Powder, a long-dissolved Britpop band.

Powder only existed for a few years in the mid 90s, releasing a handful of singles before throwing in the towel. At some point during their brief existence they cut a heavy, melodic (and substantially less cloying) version of 'Christmas Don't Be Late'. Featuring Pearl Lowe's lush vocals, the song became a more relatable, plausible holiday song when re-contextualized. Now instead of pitch-shifted (actually just sped-up) one-man harmonies, it was a heavy, rocking version featuring fully fuzzed, bloated bass lines and the occasional squealing guitar lead. Actually, when they get to the hula-hoop line, it's pretty damn catchy. 

I only came upon this version of the song years after the fact, first as a bit of a guilty pleasure. Now, though, I don't like to think of things I like as guilty pleasures. I just like to own up to what I dig, including an oddball revamp of an oddball song. Sure, call it cutesy or not relevant, but it's a damn sight better than hearing the same 15 or so Christmas songs ad nauseum. Give it a spin and see if it doesn't add a little fresh air to your Xmas Xceptions. Less rodents this season, more guitars.

Controlled Chaos

Well, hello there!


Just gonna pop in a drop a quick post for the day's Xmas Xception. Had an insane week at the office, the kind wherein you find yourself looking forward to a break, not only to stop the madness but to allow the steam to vent. I feel as though there are jets of vapor shooting out of my ears from sheer over exertion. Bad enough it's a crazy week, but then adding the holidays to the mix makes it even crazier. You can't just come home and relax - you've got to finish wrapping presents and start gearing up for holiday travels. No rest for the wicked! 


So how do we unwind? The best way. Community. Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas.

Community is that rare breed of TV show that trusts the audience. They know that if they supply quality writing, a stellar cast and a passionate production team you can hold a steady, devoted audience despite the efforts of a desperate network. They'll shuffle the show all around in the hopes of pulling in blockbuster ratings, but Arrested Development never got huge ratings and it's become the modern hallmark of 'Cancelled Too Soon' despite having ran for three full seasons. So appreciate Community while it lasts! This week had us seeing an encore viewing of last year's Christmas special, Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas.

I adore this particular episode, even within the canon of this amazing show. In it, pop-culture junkie and TV addict Abed loses his grip on reality as the stress of the season gets to him. He beings seeing the world in the manner of the old claymation/RankinBass holiday special. It. Is. Awesome. The study group embraces his madness, if only to gain perspective on how to talk him down from his delusions. John Oliver makes another fantastic appearance as a smarmy, smug wizard. Characters are transformed into holiday archetypes -Pierce a teddy bear, Jeff a Jeff in the box, Annie into a Ballerannie and Troy a toy soldier. Abed's detailed, unhinged world is beautifully sculpted and lovingly made, at once aping the style tongue in cheek and becoming downright poignant by the finale. Plus there's a fantastic dig at Lost's inability to stick the landing that still makes me laugh.

This is one of, if not the best, Christmas special in recent years. It's actually quite sincere despite the pervasive snark. Dan Harmon's little show that could cemented itself as a legitimate force of the medium with this episode, showing there's really nothing they couldn't do when they set out for it. It's available on Hulu for the time being. Do yourself a favor and indulge in some smart, engaging TV for a change this weekend. You deserve a holiday treat.

Little Monsters

Evening, kids.


How about a trip down memory lane? After all, hasn't that become a de facto theme to this site? I breakdown something we've all forgotten about while giving you a personal anecdote? On board? Good? Great. Let's do this. Today's Xmas Xception is Gremlins, a film like no other.

If you are roughly my age, there's a strong chance this movie gave you a serious case of the creeps when you were young. It was terrifying despite being oh so appealing to the youth market. Gremlins was part of that microgenre that blends horror and comedy in a subtle way. Ghostbusters was another prime example, as was the modern iteration, Shaun of the Dead. How could kids not get suckered in by the adorable Gizmo - voiced by Howie Mandel, nonetheless. Still, you break those three inscrutable, arbitrary rules and all Hell breaks loose. Nothing seemed safe as a kid after that. The little monsters were so devious! So malicious! The original draft of the screenplay was even darker, with decapitations and animal mutilations abound. Nasty stuff, eh? Of particular note was the over the top gore of the finale when a melting gremlin becomes a horrendous, dripping mess. It broke my mind as a kid. Hey, as an adult it still elicits a visceral reaction from me. Pretty killer Christmas movie, huh?

Oh, what's that? You forgot Gremlins was a Christmas movie? That's right, world. This nasty little staple of 80s horror was planted squarely in the midst of yule tide madness. I found myself forgetting that fact, only to see a clip of the movie online and I recalled all the snow and realized "Oh man, I have to watch that again! I haven't seen it in years!" Well, by a bit of serendipity that actually happened to me last Christmas. There had been some conflicts with my Christmas arrangements last year, and I ended up spending the holiday here in Minnesota while my better half saw her family in Arizona. I had to be back at the office the next day, so when I got back to my place in Uptown I grabbed my mail and headed upstairs. There, in a now defunct Netflix envelope, was Gremlins. By some excellent coincidence my DVD queue had synced up perfectly with me being all alone after Christmas. So I did what any twentysomething would do - popped it in and cracked a bottle of wine.

It was awesome.


Gremlins was cathartic and mischievous, a fantastic way to vent after the stress of the holiday. A little Cabernet Sauvingon didn't hurt either, but hey! Monsters terrorizing the town and ruining Christmas! What better way to indulge my inner (but most likely outer) child! While obviously dated and intentionally hokey and B-movie-esque at times, it still held up really, really well. I had a lot of fun poking through the memories of my previous experiences watching this movie and being do damned scared. Sounds like good holiday fun!

Oi Noise

Grumble, grumble, grumble.


My countdown of Xmas Xceptions got off to a negative start, didn't it? How's about we flip that business right on its head? Sound good? Cool, we're gonna get a little manic positivity in today's post. Coming at you from the late 90s benefit compilation, A Very Special Christmas 3, it's The Vandals' 'Oi to the World', as covered by No Doubt.

I used to love this compilation. There was a holiday season that was full to the brim with my brothers and myself jamming out to the likes of Smashing Pumpkins, Blues Traveler and Run DMC as we made our shopping runs and trips to elderly relatives. Tons of fresh takes on the old standards that were actually fun to listen to, at least back in the 90s. Good gravy am I dating myself. Anyway, one of my favorite tracks on this compilation, despite Craig's protests, was the frenetic and exuberance No Doubt cover of 'Oi to the World'.

Don't get me wrong - I love me some Vandals. Funnily enough it was my younger brother that turned me on to the legends of punk. Still, the clean, horn-infused mania of No Doubt interpreting the tale of gang rivalry totally sold the story to me. In it, we have a gritty, grimy tale of inner city punks and skinheads trying to settle their rivalry in a bloody rumble on Christmas day. Men are left beaten and broken in the gutter when a miracle happens and peace breaks out between the tribes. Gwen Stefani bleats out the tune in typical, joyous fashion. The band embraces the upbeat tone with abandon. The festive horn breakdown in the middle is unabashedly corny and awesome.

I love this song, even if it defies the holiday convention. No, scratch that - I love it because it does. It's violent and manic, intense and irreverent. The harmonies on the chorus are insane. It's unabashedly sincere, to the horror of jaded hipsters everywhere. It's the kind of thing you don't hear on the holiday station, to say the least. Need some Xmas Xuberance? Look no further.

Homeward Bound

Here we go, kids!


I mentioned something I had up my sleeve - I decided to sneak in one last themed series before the year is out. The theme, this time around? Things about the holidays that aren't insanely cloying and overdone. Things that don't adhere to the rule of making you want to bash you head in when you're forced to endure them in shopping malls. Strap in, kids. We're gonna take a look at the 12 Xmas Xceptions. First on the list? Something cynical.

I may not be the hugest fan of Blink 182 these days, but I sure used to have a soft spot for them. You get older, your tastes change. Duran Duran weren't made into mega stars by hipsters and adults - it was teens with disposable cash and incessant radios. Point being, I listened to a lot of melodic punk in high school, and I loved me some Blink. They were super catchy and accessible and irreverent, back in a more innocent time before domestic terrorism, three wars and an endless election cycle. Justification? Maybe. But I still like their holiday song 'I Won't Be Home for Christmas'. It's cynical and  passively aggresive in that "just leave me alone" sense. Perfect for the Xmas Xceptions!

Back when I first got into the band, they didn't have a huge catalogue and tons of airplay. You had to make do with what you had, which was pretty much their first two (secret best) albums and possibly some bootlegs if you could find them. I listened to them to death, waiting for more stuff to come out. When I heard about a holiday single, I was baffled. Even more so when I actually heard it on the radio. It was awesome, but infuriating - how was I supposed to track it down when it was in limited pressing and barely in any music rotation? It wasn't until years later, and some widespread commercial breakthroughs, that I heard it with any regularity. Once I got into the mp3 scene I tracked it down. It still is a staple in my custom Xmas playlists.

It's catchy, it's snarky, it's everything you'd expect from Blink in a holiday single. Major-key riffs. Palm-muted guitars. A half-time chorus. Tales of emotional distress culminating in being sent to jail and violated by cellmates. Plus, there's chimes and bells! It's good, old Xmas fun, minus the cloying, heartwarming tone. Sometimes you want to skip the festivities and ditch the obligations. We all want a night to ourselves, now and then, even around the holidays. I get it. We're just getting started, gang. Eleven more Xceptions. See you on the countdown!

Video Clipped

Moving right through the week. 

Just a short bit today, very full life and schedule. Lots of obligations. I've got many debts to keep and miles to go before I sleep. In contrast to yesterday's in-depth look at Purple by Stone Temple Pilots, today's post will be a simplified look at a song from the same era. 

Before the days of DVRs and YouTube, it was darn near impossible to find something illusive on TV. If, like me, you only had MTV to serve as an introductory source of music you had to pay rapt attention, lest you miss the little info box on the small of the screen at the beginning and end of the clip. Good luck if it was a more obscure song, too - while there were still videos on MTV at the time, they were becoming fewer and farther between. A sick day from school was a guaranteed marathon of MTV at that stage in my life - it was the only way to see some of the videos I wanted to see so badly. That's how I saw the debut of the Mentos-themed clip for 'Big Me' by The Foo Fighters, or the premiere of Green Day's dual release 'Brainstew/Jaded' when I was an obsessed young teenager. 

This unfortunate catch-as-you-can modus operandi made me into a rapt viewer. Of course, I was too stupid to write anything down, instead relying on my own intellect to recall anything worthwhile. It may have been a vain, foolhardy technique, but hey - I was 13 and it might be responsible for whatever powers of pop-culture recollection I possess today. Anyway, point is - one sunny spring afternoon I saw a video for a band called Stabbing Westward. The lead singer sounded a bit more like Ozzy than I would really prefer, but the song, at the time, was incredibly heavy and rocking. The video for the song was interesting as well, a bit of performance footage interspersed with the band watching a movie for what may have been an earlier version of the clip itself. Unfortunately the name of the song was a bit generic, to the point that I pretty much forgot it as soon as the text disappeared at the end of the clip. All I had was the band name. I filed it away in the back of my head as awesome but likely to never be heard again.

 Time passed, I found other music I was more excited about. Then, one day months after seeing the video once, I was in my dinky little music store I frequented when I saw a name that tugged at the back of my mind. It was Stabbing Westward's album, Wither, Blister, Burn + Peel. 

"It was good..." I thought of the single.

So I plunked down fourteen (14!) hard earned dollars for the album. 

The album, as a whole, was wildly uneven. That single, though - good stuff. Not $14 good, really, but pretty good when I was younger. Actually it's pretty good now. I figure by the law of averages , the price of that cd is offset by all of the free or "free" music I've obtained in the course of my life. Sometimes you have to pay in, amiright? Anyway, remembering that single and picking up the album was a good choice. I didn't really know it at the time but this was basically my first foray into the world of industrial music, even at it's most mediocre. I wouldn't get into NIN until years later.

'Shame' proved to be a decent track I kept coming back to. It's fairly de-rigeur and of-the-times with it's distorted guitars and wailing vocals, but as longs you're not looking for high art it's a fun rock track. There's a tone here that's quite appealing, something created by the verses and chorus playing off of each other, that makes an air of sleek movement and chases via hard rock of the 90s. Check it out.

Box Out

These things have a way of bleeding into each other. 


It's been a fun weekend. As much as I enjoy parties, especially holiday ones with special drinks, I had just as much fun doing errands with my better half. Somehow we always get lost in Target and end up wandering around looking for something we've passed. It's like a casino in there - shiny stuff everywhere, tons of other weirdos and no clocks or visible exits. As I write this, the melted snow and ice are slowly re-freezing. I'm not looking forward to the drive tomorrow. It's nice and dark and quiet here. It makes me want to go and re-experience Outside the Box. 

Outside the Box is one of my favorite not-so-secret things on the internet. An online flash comic (wait, please stay with me for this) created by Brendan Cahill, Outside the Box is a great way to spend a quiet night. Cahill, hailing from San Francisco  created the strip/site/flashthing back in 2002, with the first run closing out in 2004. A one shot and second run followed in the ensuing years. It's not a strict re-paneling like some of Marvel's online content, or single page, three panel affairs like Penny Arcade or The Oatmeal. Box is a moving, vibrant noir tale that just has this unassuming but totally surprising edge to it. 


Telling the tale of office drone Jamie Black as he gets caught up in the world of private detectives and mobsters and the recently deceased, Box is a solid story told in an original format. It could work as a traditional format, but the way Cahill took advantage of the limited movement gives a whole added layer of context and storytelling to this mystery. Subtle tricks like shadows moving or showing characters moving through blueprints add a cinematic aspect that would otherwise be lost on a conventional comic. Through the novel medium, we see Black slowly separate from his office job as he gets pulled deeper and deeper into the mystery unfolding around him.

A nice touch on Cahill's part was the inclusion of suggested soundtracks. More than a handful have been covered here, the usual trip hop and down tempo stuff, as well as more off the beaten path artists like Two Lone Swordsmen. Throw on some of your favorite sneaking, gumshoe-esque tunes and dive in to the motion comic. It really paid off in the end. While it may be old hand in internet parlance, it still makes for a fun, gripping ride.

Good Catch

What's good?


I'm heading out to what will be the first of a slew of holiday parties tonight. I mean, the first of the season. No party hopping for me. Just getting a jump on the season. Super excited, no joke. While I get ready, I plan on listening to something a bit odd, a lost song that fell through the cracks of the world in the 90s. It's one of my favorite hidden gems. I got it on a CD that was given to me by my older brother's friend back when I was an impressionable youth and everything everyone older than me did was irrevocably cool. 

This friend of the older, benevolent brother was as constant a source of new tunes as my brother. When he sold me a stack of CDs he longer listened to, I was (for no discernible reason) really enthralled by a sampler for a label based in New York. For years after, I was unable to find any information on who or what the album was. Only in the last few years has relevant info popped up on the Googles. At the time, though, it was this inscrutable oddity - no real story or explanation as to what it was, just a random label sampler. Sure, there were some stinkers on there, but there were some great hidden gems, too. It was from Grass Records, which later evolved into Wind-Up, which kind of solves that little riddle. According to the Wiki, there were financial problems, which may account for the lack of any information whatsoever. The sampler was called Grass of '96 and it featured what must have been the new artists of that year. 

My favorite track off the sampler was (of course) similar to Sneaker Pimps, Portishead and Massive Attack. Performing a song called 'Catch Me', Chimera popped into my life with this lone single and disappeared without a trace. From what I've found, they were an Irish band that existed long enough to put out a few albums but never had much mainstream success here in the states. Too bad, because I really still dig this song. It's always felt a bit like the typical 90s alt sound, a bit of looped drums (how edgy!) and some caterwauling distortion beneath a clean, spacey guitar line. Singer Eileen Henry had a fine voice, nothing crazy but just fine for the song, clear and emotive, high and light. 


There's no big, startling revelation to this song, or a dramatic memory attached to it. Just something that was always odd and it stood out to me as something that should have had broader success than (seemingly) me being the only person to ever hear it. I guess I got the sampler around fall/winter, so it pops back into my mind this time of year. Give it a listen and see what I'm rambling about. Hopefully you dig it like I did.

Deep Thoughts

So here we find ourselves, back at the weekend.


This week was incredibly busy. It was one of those weeks where you glance at the clock and resign yourself to the simple fact that there aren't enough hours in the day. I'm okay with that,, though. It just means the days pass quickly and I have productive time at the office. Still, most nights this eek I came home with eye strain from staring at my monitor and a sore, cramped back from hunching as I crunch spreadsheets down. Fun stuff. I need to unwind, get out of my head for just a bit. To do so, I want to indulge in a secret, somewhat nerdy obsession of mine.

I love the ocean. Not just any ocean. All of them. It's the monumental concept of such a strange, alien place that fascinates my mind so. There's this completely and inherently different world that exists just beyond ours, beneath the waves. A place that makes no sense to our bipedal form, a place that was simply not made for us. We are not meant to be there. There are monsters there. How can you have any interest in the world around you and not be fascinated by this beautifully obtuse realm? Don't buy it? Fine. Watch Oceans, produced by Disneynature and tell me I'm wrong.

I saw the trailer for this doc back in 2009, just before it was released. Sitting in the dark of the theater, grinning in childlike glee, I tapped on my better half's arm excitedly, whispering "I have to see that!" While I may have missed it in the theaters due to schedule conflicts, it was one of the first Blu Rays I ever bought. Holy Hannah am I glad I did.

Oceans plays straight to my inner geek while soothing my overstimulated mind. Narrated by Pierce Brosnan, the documentary shows the beauty and allure of a place we simply cannot inhabit. Massive, sweeping vistas show the enormity of the world around us to create a sense of scale, only for the camera to plunge deeper and deeper into the abyss. Overwhelming schools of fish swirl around like tornadoes. Birds dive bomb the upper layers. An endless sea of crustaceans make the mind reel at the enormity of the fauna beneath the waves. We think of big blue sea, but its teeming with life where we least expect it. Scariest, or perhaps most majestic, of all are the whales. My mind simply cannot fathom sharing the planet with such gargantuan, intelligent creatures. The thought that there are things like that in the briny depths keeps me wary about boarding ocean liners, to be perfectly honest. They are smart, gentle and mammals, somehow. None of that makes any sense to my primitive mind. Seeing it all in high definition in the privacy of my own home, wine in hand, made it all the more engaging and captivating.

Disney's Oceans is a serene, cerebral look at a world that absolutely mystifies me. It's the perfect kind of documentary to help me blow off the steam of the week. I'd you haven't seen it, I highly recommend at least streaming it on Netflix. Go HD if you really want to see the depths from the comfort of your couch. I'll unwind. You go diving.