Big Ugly Man Doll

Last night, being the involved paterfamilias that I am, waiting for the PTA meeting to start, I was treated, by which I mean subjected, to the dulcet tones of a half-dozen 6th Graders playing Jingle Bells on various stringed weapons of mass destruction, by which I mean it sucked like a Hoover upright set for 110 that’s been plugged into a 220 outlet.  

This is, in fact, about that.  This is an advent countdown of Christmas and other miscellaneous holiday songs that make me barf a bit, the ones you know you’re supposed to love, but really you’d rather icepick your ears than sit through them on the radio again – you know the kind I mean.  I really didn’t think Jingle Bells, per se, would make this list, and since I can’t subject you to the same tortuous dischord (without incurring the wrath of the local PETA chapter, to say nothing of my cats), it won’t. 

Today’s exercise in aural torture instead comes from the incomparable Michael Bolton.  And when I say incomparable, I mean that there is no one who can suck the musical life out of a room to compare with him.   “Our Love is Like a Holiday?”  Really, Michael?  Is that because it only happens once a year?  Is it one of those holidays where the Mother In Law shows up to explain how you’re doing it wrong while the Father In Law sits on the couch watching TV and drinking your beer for a week and the goddamn roast is overcooked AGAIN and we’re not inviting the Montibans next door because of what they said about our Sharon, and we’re can’t invite the Smithfields even though we like them because they’ll just argue politics with your mom and remember she broke that vase last year – one of those Holidays?  Yes?

Perhaps he was trying to write a Christmas tribute to Neil Young’s “Our Love is Like a Hurricane,” and just wanted to make sure he could suck more than that.  Jury’s still out.

Also, any song that starts with the words, “Oh yeah” sounds like you forgot something.  I think I forgot to turn this thing off.  “I know that I let you down in the past / Cause I’ve got so many places to go / Girl, I promise I’ll be around, give me a chance / Cause I’m singing for you wherever it show”  – riiiiiiiiiiight.  No, no, of course I love you baby.  Those other six hundred forty-two girls I banged after those concerts didn’t mean anything to me.   After all, “it’s hard to believe / This world brought you to me…” 

No, it’s hard to believe there’s anyone who’s going to fall for this dreck.  Get a haircut. 

Go ahead.  It’s like a train wreck – you don’t want to listen, but you can’t keep yourself from clicking.  I’ll be over here, trying to get the sound of two cellos, two violas, and two violence out of my head.  And yes, I spelled that right.

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