Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to the all important 574th episode of Sneaky Dragon – we are now eligible for a podcasting pension!
This week: show schematic; uncertain certainties; find out what it means to you; doublethink on death; laugh at your own plans; walking on thin ice; law-abiding; president vice; tales from the crypto; mankind wasn’t his business; quill crazy after all these years; lockboxing day; future assholes; taking a butchers at the butcher; to hell with Statler and Waldorf; Star names; sorry to forget it; bi-monthly SCTV talk; Saturday Night at the movies; Lorne survivor; Ian welcomes Mike Birbiglia’s A New One; underbaked comedy; why he hated watermelons; full of woe about Wednesday; bester Fester; the Scoobyverse; Dave opens The Cabinet of Curiosities; Top 5 Songs (as requested by Laurel) – Children; favoured child; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; prejudiced at pride; egg-citement; and, finally, fetish factories.
Top 5 Songs – Children (as requested by Laurel)
- The Beach Boys – “I Wanna Pick You Up” – Love You, 1977 – 1:53:37
- XTC – “Pink Thing” – Oranges and Lemons, 1989 – 2:04:01
- Joni Mitchell – “Little Green” – Blue, 1971 – 2:10:05
- Loudon Wainwright III – “Hitting You” – History, 1992 – 2:24:39
- Sleater-Kinney – “Lions and Tigers” – One Beat, 2002 – 2:51:57
- bonus song : Judy Kelly – “Window” – Window, 1974 – 2:56:49
Question of the Week: What do you like doing in the wintertime? Or for those who live in the upside-down, the summertime?
Sub-question of the Week: What is your favourite Christmas (or holiday) album?
Thanks for listening.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
A Dickens of a correction: The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge that the Cratchits having goose for dinner but it’s actually a prize TURKEY that’s hanging in the poultry shop. Maybe the shop owners used it as a curiosity to attract business knowing it was too expensive for their usual customers. Maybe they planned to eat it themselves if it didn’t sell.
Every winter, I like to see the East Van Panto. It’s zany and kid-friendly but it also has scathing local political and pop culture references and song parodies. Like I did the last two years, I’ll watch the online version even though they are back to in-person performances. This time it’s based on The Little Mermaid. Ariel is a human busker playing at New Brighton Park who falls for a mer-person. It sounds like this year’s theme is not giving into despair which is a timely message.
I don’t have a favourite Christmas album, but the first one I remember having at home was Nat King Cole’s The Magic of Christmas With Children (1966). Its front cover shows four white kids but not Nat. A search reveals the album was produced for Safeway stores which is probably where my Mom got it. I wonder if they thought some people might not buy it if a black singer was on the cover. Amongst the cheery songs and gentle carols was a cover of “The Little Boy That Santa Claus Forgot,” about a kid who got no toys for Christmas. It ends “I’m so sorry for that laddie, he hasn’t got a Daddy…” It was the first time I heard a sad Christmas song. It’s even sadder than Joni Mitchell’s “River”. How about an un-Merry Christmas top 5 list?
I remember hearing about that Nat King Cole album and others like it, where the cover didn’t reveal the artist due to color. Damn shame but I remember Cole fondly this time of year and I can see his smiling face singing many a Christmas song, he was an outstanding singer and I’m glad I grew up with his music.
The saddest Christmas and un-Merry thing I remember was an early episode of “Happy days” where Fonzie is alone on Christmas at his garage he worked for. Richie sees him there eating a can of beans or something and The Fonz is all alone. Richie invites him to the Cunningham home for Christmas and if I’m not mistaken, maybe that’s the first time Fonzie meets the Cunningham family??? Discuss.
Setting the record straight: a search turned up a photo of the back cover of that 1966 Magic of Christmas With Children album (with the 4 kids). There are some black and white thumbnail pictures of his other albums on it, and his image is on those. His 1960 Magic of Christmas album (with the 2 kids) has a small picture of him on the back cover. I still suspect it was a marketing strategy to keep him off the front cover.
Minor correction, but an important one because I really like this song: in Muppets Christmas Carol, Statler & Waldorf aren’t “Jacob and Marley,” they are Jacob Marley and Robert Marley. And the song they sing goes “we’re Marley and Marley.”
I try not to leave a correction without answering at least one question of the week, so: my favorite holiday album is “Almost a Full Moon” by Hawksley Workman (I feel like I’ve brought this up before…)
Yep, that checks out… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQeEtYR2Db4
Seeing that December is still relatively mild in Texas, (seriously, it’s been in the mid 70’s this past week, 24 degrees to you guys) so we really didn’t have any snow to play in as kids. The Texas equivalent was to take huge sheets of cardboard from boxes, spray them with Pam or some non-stick spray and head for the highest hills we could find. The local highways behind the field at the end of my neighborhood provided some insanely steep hills. The hills were made to support the high levels where the intersecting highways inclined and crossed high over one another and were now dry, dead grass. The grass was loose from a deep mowing and were like straw which provided a slick surface for the cardboard “sleds”. Mind you, we weren’t flying into traffic from the highway, just using the dry grassy hills to sled on away from the traffic. They emptied onto a huge field, so it was completely safe…but exhausting after a dozen or so hikes up the hill. It was called grass sledding and sometimes we’d leave the cardboard for anyone else who came along after were made an afternoon of it. So that’s pretty much a redneck winter activity here in Texas.
Let it be known that if we did get any snow or ice, which was rare, we headed for the same hills with real sleds and made snow ramps that launched us high in the air. We were like little Evel Knievels flying down those hills to our childhood death. It’s a wonder we didn’t rip, mangle or break anything other than cardboard.
My family had so many Christmas albums growing up and we listened to them heavily on the old family stereo, the kind where you could stack them with the arm to hold them in order. We had Bing Crosby, Nat “King” Cole, Elvis Presley, Andy Williams and Perry Como, real traditional stuff. These were great and created long lasting memories but nothing beats “X-mas in Sean’s Ears”. I’ll explain.
I know I’ve told this story before, maybe on “Listening Party”, but I lost my close friend Sean in 2016 and we used to make each other gifts instead of buying for one another. One year we each recorded our favorite Christmas songs on a mix tape and gave those to each another. Sean’s tape was titled “X-mas in Sean’s Ears” because he went everywhere with headphones on. I still have the cassette and it helps me remember him fondly since he died the week before Christmas, so I get it out along with a tape deck so I can hear it. This year I’ll either re-create the mix by finding the MP3s and assemble it digitally or use a device I have that transfers tapes to MP3s so I can have Sean’s original music. Sorry for the long story, but that’s by far my favorite Christmas album….or, mix. I miss Sean so much this time of year but I’ll always have this little creation of his during the holidays.
Here’s a photo of Sean’s original “X-mas in Sean’s Ears” mix tape, Dave will get a kick out of this since you can see all the songs listed: https://flic.kr/p/2o4GdsM
As a notable mention, I used to record all the Rankin-Bass music from the Christmas Specials to tape. I loved the Miser Brothers and Winter Warlock songs from “The Year Without a Santa Claus.” I also have a playlist for my iPhone I break out this time every year of all the covers I could find of “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch.” And yes, even the Thurl Ravenscroft version of course…
I get weird around the holidays, but I like it. Celebrate being yourself and weird this year my fellow Sneakers, it’s the greatest gift you can give yourself.
buon Natale!!
I looked at the mix tape label and wondered what that Patrick Gowers Sherlock Holmes X-mas tune was all about. So I did some detective work and found it was from “The Blue Carbuncle” (1984 TV adaptation) so I watched it on YouTube. Quite an amusing Christmas-set Sherlock Holmes case whose plot includes a gem, a hat and a goose!
Detective work looking up the world’s most famous detective? Great work! Being that this tape was made in 1995 and my friend Sean was a HUGE Sherlock Holmes fan (Mostly Jeremy Brett), it’s no wonder that made it onto the tape. That was part of the fun making these, we’d find and share music from places the other hand no idea about! It’s elementary dear Louise!!