Captain Purplehead

So, part 1 dealt with music, so there’s no real reason to revisit it. Yes, there are things I wish I’d said and didn’t but there’s always next year.
Part 2 will deal with two parts of the Christmas formula. Movies will be discussed and ravaged later but we will start, briefly, with the dreaded Christmas work do.
If you live in Ireland you’ll know and recognise our antiquated style of management, largely built on cronyism, obsequiousness and the odd outdated American management manual. Y’know, the kind of one written by a real go-getter back in the 80’s. There are some excellent people managers whom I have worked, and continue to work with, but there are also some pitifully awful pieces of shit who have not one clue about management. They fall into two categories: Those who are still craving parental approval and those who got way too much of it. They are aloof and snotty and are thoroughly detestable human beings who will live their pointless lives and never even question if they could have actually done something constructive with them. I recently had a chat about percentages with one of them that was akin to the “small. Far away” lecture that Father Ted gave Doughal.
Believe me, I could go on ad nauseum about these little fucking arse licking idiots but the point is that every year, you are expected to go out with these people, socialise with them and, very likely, get drunk with them. How anyone thinks this is a good idea is beyond me. You will invariably have the two who drunkenly jump each other’s bones and regret it the following morning, the moronic, unrealistic and stupidly dressed woman, who starts crying about the state of her relationship and you just know that she will gravitate towards you, because you are the one person trying not to get involved, you’re trying to be invisible so you can maybe slip away and join your mates somewhere. It’s fine if you go out with the people you immediately work with. They have probably become mates but the Christmas work do should be banned. They are normally tacky and unnecessary affairs that cost too much money and are invariably disappointing and embarrassing.
Right, now that that’s out of the way, we make our way towards TV movie scheduling for Christmas. Willy Wonka, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Champ, The Great Escape, Titanic, ET, Die Hard, A plethora of James Bond movies, Little Women and, of course, Star Wars, will all feature heavily in the Christmas schedule. You will be able to see some of them more than once, should you have the urge for repeated punishment.
Most of these movies have very little to do with Christmas, yet they pick them every fucking year. Why is that? Why show the fucking squirm-fest that is Titanic at a time when we’re all supposed to be happy and getting along? This is a three hour movie about a love affair between two nauseating characters that just happens to have the Titanic as a backdrop. A Night To Remember is a far superior film and they had none of the special effects technology open to James Cameron. He had a chance to tell a powerful story about a tragedy the many of us are fascinated with but he fucked it up. What’ll he think of next, Dances With Wolves in Space… oh, wait a second…
The Great Escape is an excellent, if slightly flawed, movie about actual events and I’ll admit I look forward to seeing it when it’s on. I still don’t know why they choose Christmas to show this film but that’s fine.
Star Wars is a great trilogy. The original had everything; space, fascism, good vs evil, heroes, villains, latent incestuous longing and colouredy swords. That’s all well and good. I don’t subscribe to the belief that these are amongst the best ever made, though. As a kid I loved them. Then that fucking wanker, George Lucas decided to milk the cash cow and make prequels to the original. That’s actually ok as a concept, there were some unresolved issues. I mean, Darth Vader suddenly becomes a good guy right before he pops his clogs and they all meet up in the afterlife for a bit of a party and a natter and it never quite made sense to me. The prequels go into exhaustive detail about his fall from goodie to baddie. The problem with the prequels is that they are such unbelievable shit, I wanted to go to George Lucas’ house and bludgeon him with Spielberg’s severed arm. He basically tied me to a chair, held my eyes open with matches and made me watch as he smeared his own shit all over my childhood. As I squirmed and wailed, he laughed maniacally, scooping another handful directly from his fat, hairy hole and happily applied it to those precious memories I had held so dear. Fuck you, Lucas, you fucking knobhead!
Have we become so enslaved to formula that we actually yearn for it? I remember years ago, hearing someone complain that they weren’t showing Willy Wonka that year. WHAT? Who fucking cares about Willy fucking Wonka! Wait until next year or buy the fucking DVD!
We live in a time when originality is in criminally short supply. In music, it is beginning to show signs of life again but those signs are very faint and, if Darth Walsh finds out, he’ll wipe it out entirely. Movies, however, are dying on the vine. Everything’s a remake, a sequel, a prequel or a bad rendering of a comic book hero. Yet, we lap it up. I recently read a book by Thomas Harris called Fatherland, that would make a great movie but they won’t make it. Yes, there are some exceptions that give us hope but they are very few. In fact, the only truly reliable director these days is Clint Eastwood. He is, in fact, the only remaining superstar on the planet.
Look at what they’ve stolen from us. Vampires are now lovely people in search of true love and loveliness, for fuck’s sake. It used to be that, if you had a poster of a vampire in your bedroom, you weird. Now it’s fucking normal. How did this happen. What’s next? Derek and Peggy – a Zombie Love Story. (Love never dies, even for the undead). Sweet suffering fuck!
So, now that you’ve read this, scurry away and lap up your formula and live in the nice bubble with the message emblazoned upon it, “DON’T WORRY, NOTHING WILL EVER CHANGE”. To quote John McClane in Die Hard, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem, buddy”.
So, to finish, I genuinely wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas and a truly great New Year, it probably won’t happen, but I hope it does. Hey, why don’t you give yourself a real present this Christmas and try something different.

I wasn’t going to do a Christmas post this year but, everyone seems to be so full of fucking cheer, despite having being shafted from every possible angle and in every orifice by greedy right-wing pricks, I feel I need to point out a few fucking home truths to people. No, I’m not going to go on about the worsening European crisis or fascism or anything political because you’ve heard enough of that and there are people out there doing it much better than I could. No, I’m going to talk about the Christmas formula, particularly – (ah fuck it, exclusively) – the entertainment side of it. Because of this, I’m not going to do just one post, I shall do two.
Right, let’s briefly speak about the music side of it. I don’t mind the old crooner songs because they are not invasive and annoying, they are what all Christmas songs should be; something to be played lightly in the background to build atmosphere. The crooners knew that. The orchestras that backed them knew that and that’s correct and proper because that’s just how it should be. I don’t mind a Christmas atmosphere. No, I’ve come to hate Christmas because people tend to just shove shit in your face and expect you to swallow it. There is never an acceptable occasion to do that to anyone. My personal peeves are that fucking horrible Driving home for Christmas song. Fuck me, how pathetic is that piece of fucking horrible rancid shit? Chris Rea was obsessed with traffic jams at the time. He wrote a song called The Road To Hell. It was a song about a metaphorical traffic jam. He likens the world’s slide towards doom to a traffic jam. He uses this imagery because it occurred to him when he was stuck in a traffic jam once. His bad mood about being stuck in traffic gave voice to some dark thoughts he had about the plight of the world. “It boils with every poison you can think of”, chirps little Chris. He’s right, I fucking hate traffic jams. When it comes to Christmas, however, he writes a happy little ditty about Christmas. What is the subject matter? Being stuck in a traffic jam as you’re driving home for Christmas. All of a sudden, that murky, dark, hopelessness evoked in an earlier recording is transformed into “Top to toe in tail lights”. Suddenly, he’s so delighted to be in this traffic jam that he’s singing to himself. Not only that, he looks at the driver next to him and he’s fucking singing too. Too much fucking Prozac on the motorway is never a good fucking idea! MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND, CHRIS!
Slade seem to have started this fucking all encompassing need for bands to bring out fucking Christmas songs. This is mainly because more singles are bought around Christmas so it is the hardest No. 1 to get. Call me cynical but I guarantee there is NO other reason for Christmas singles. They don’t fucking care if you’re out in a fucking pub, covered in glitter, singing it between shots of over-priced luminous fucking syrup. They want the cash! Simple as that.
Look at Mariah Carey, for instance. I’ll be the first to admit that she can be quite pleasing on the eye. Not so much the ear though. Look, being able to reach high C may be a talent or it may simply be an ability akin to being double jointed. I haven’t given it much thought and it doesn’t matter either way. The point is this. The fact that you are able to reach high C, does not mean, under any circumstances, that you fucking should. Mariah Carey is a disgusting little fucking money grubbing trollop that is less fucking appetising than a marmite and toejam sandwich with extra fucking earwax. She bleeds cheese. She almost makes Jordan look fucking classy. And, yes, she spouts some fucking horrible Christmas shite. “All I want for Christmas is you”. I’m willing to bet that they had to put a fucking small mountain of cash and a diamond encrusted rampant rabbit to inspire her to sing that. Fuck off, Mariah, you fucking toerag!
We cannot discuss Christmas songs without mentioning that fucking nut tumour, Cliff Richard. What a fucking spoofer that man is. If you play the Lord’s Prayer backwards, it says, “fuck off and die, Cliff, you old fucking cunt”. I haven’t tried it, but I’m reliably informed. Enough about that fucker.
Then we have the Bandaid song. There won’t be snow in Africa? Really? I’m not even going to go into how badly conceived that song was. Yes, their heart was in the right place but it’s a terrible fucking song.
Fairytale of New York is a very well crafted song. It is an excellent song but it’s overplayed. How Ronan Keating ever thought it was a good idea to cover it is, frankly, beyond me. The idea of the younger Cliff Richard singing “T’was Christmas Eve, my love, in the drunk tank”, is hilarious.
People like Dana and Cliff order us to remember the true meaning of Christmas. They want us to remember that it is a time when our saviour was born. He was unique because he was born without original sin. Original fucking sin! For fuck’s sake! They want you to believe that you never had a hope. They want you to believe that you can’t possibly amount to anything good without the guidance of their makey uppy religion. Your children are born without a malicious thought or intention. They are born innocent and beautiful and precious but these fucking zealots want you to believe that they are born sinners. How utterly disgusting! How fucking dare they. Of course, this is just to coral you into a ball of fear and confusion, which can only be fixed by the guidance of the church. If you’re lucky enough not to be dicked in the ear by one of them, you may grow up to understand that the whole thing is a load of bollox.
Part 2 of this rant will be up shortly. Stay tuned, or don’t, it’s up to you.