Mister Faded Glory

Everybody can relax, because I received the Nirvana box set for Christmas. It’s good so far, and it’s worth the price of admission just for the demo of ‘Here She Comes Now,’ but that’s a post for another day.

In other news, you may have noticed it’s Christmas. Right now Kobe and Shaq are engaged in a fistfight on the TV (oh, wait, sorry ESPN, they’re not).

In other, other news, this is the second year in a row and the third out of the last five in which I haven’t been home for Christmas. Never easy, but I’m unexpectedly making a bittersweet trip back to Iowa tomorrow. My grandmother was recently diagnosed with cancer of the liver, and, in short, it’s too late, with only a stunning little bit of time left.

I’m not going to bore you with a long, drawn-out reminiscence of her personality and personal history. Suffice it to say, she meant a lot to me, she was extremely intelligent, grounded, and even had a keen worldview.

Her wit, outlook, and values were and still are very similar to mine. She was always an inspiration and I will be extremely saddened to lose her. In any case, that’s Christmas this year — perhaps a little added meaning, but not without a little twinge, knot, or full-on gut-punch to the stomach.

And to sum up, I’m proud to be her grandson. So have a good one with your families, whether it’s XMas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Ramadan, or just a get-together, because that is, to me, what it’s all about. Your family and friends. And since I’m bordering on sentimental, I’m going to try an end with a shocking course-change in post before signing off for the trip, which should assert my continued irreverence and cynicism.

Today I turned on the TV and TBS is running its dreadful Christmas Story marathon. Now I don’t know which is more hip, to claim that the Xmas Story is wistfully cool, or to hate it. I hate it. Especially in marathon form.
However, not to be outdone, FX has decided to inflict upon us a Jingle All the Way marathon, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and possibly Sinbad. Don’t even know where to go with this. Clearly a case of programming execs sitting around a Dec. 23 meeting, saying:

Exec 1: Well, we could go with Rescue Me as a marathon.
Exec 2: Marathons are easy.
Chimp on Roller skates: Why would we toss out our own shows in marathon form? It’s Christmas, and we’re critical darlings. No one’s watching anyway.
Exec 1: Agreed. What Christmas movie is the cheapest?
Exec 2: Well, Piggly Wiggly has Jingle All the Way for $1.99 or The Santa Clause for $2.99.
Chimp: Who are the stars?
Exec 2: Arnold Schwarzenegger is in Jingle All the Way and Tim Allen is in The Santa Clause.
Exec 1: Better get Jingle all the Way. Tim Allen is the janitor here.

(is this thing on?)