Let's Talk About This Christmas Shit

“You are a hallucination brought on by alcohol... Russian vodka poisoned by Chernobyl!”

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to a holiday edition of Bad Sandwich Chronicles Beyond Thunderdome. Have you all gathered your brandies and eggnogs? Have you all put on your most exquisite holiday finery? Are you ready to fucking murder your family? Or are you helpless and alone, a solitary prisoner of a soul in a world you did not create nor ask to be born into? Regardless. Come sit by my hearth and let’s talk Christmas, a whimsical holiday that celebrates the birth of a jew hippy (who would later be nailed to a board) and who everyone would pretend from there on out was neither jew nor hippy. I mean, honestly, we really don’t know much about this guy, for as much as we all have been carrying on about him for the last 2000 years.

Here’s what we know: literally nothing. The records from this era, to quote Nelson Munz, are spotty at best. The story is that a woman named Mary and her husband named Joseph….

OKAY wait! 

Sorry to derail this so early on, but we should talk about this a little, I believe we’ve gotten into this before but this is a very special day and so, in the spirit of catholic tradition, let’s just recite the same shit again and again, right? Right. 

So, you’re telling me that in the middle east in the year 1 BC, when places were still called Arimathea and Bethlehem and shit of that nature that there was a couple cruising around and their names were MARY and JOSEPH? Seems legit. Today if you go to Palestine (the modern day zone where these places used to be), peoples’ names are like Mahound and Salman and Sami and Wasif and shit like that. But for sure, back in the day there was a goddamn couple named Mary and Joseph walking around out there and that wasn’t weird at all. Yes. Those names fall neatly into that cultural paradigm.

And before you come at me with this ‘it’s been westernized’ shit, lemme reiterate (and I’ve said this before) there is a motherfucker named Methuselah in this very same series, and more to the point, the MAIN guy in the whole story, the Luke Skywalker, if you will (assuming that we all agree that God is nothing more than an avatar of Darth Vader [which, duh]) is named Jesus. So don’t say “well, they just anglicized the names” because um, they didn’t for everyone. 

I mean, can you imagine...and please try to, walking through the middle of an ancient Middle Eastern city today and running into someone, anyone. Can you imagine how fucking weird it would be if their name was Joe or Mary or Paul or Mark or Luke or John? Okay, now take your Delorean back TWO THOUSAND YEARS and tell me about all the dudes named Mark you meet. Doesn’t seem right, kemosabe. But anyway….let’s continue…

...ended up sleeping out amongst the pigshit and the donkeys and what have you. Her story was that she was a virgin. Here’s what I know: anyone giving birth outdoors into a morass of animal feces after running away from home is no virgin. The part where she’s pregnant really gives it away, but the “fuck you I’ll do what I want” aspect of this action is similarly not to be overlooked. 

Also significant: Joseph is not putting up with any of this shit unless they’re fucking. I mean, I SUPPOSE it’s possible that he’s just the nerd ass friend like Ducky or whatever but I don’t know that that nerd friend prototype can navigate and negotiate a trip all the way into Bethlehem and a place to stay for free when the whole inn is full. The friend friend prototype seems like the kind of person who would never let Mary sleep in shit. The mysterious non-husband that knocked her up would TOTALLY negotiate that kinda deal thusly: 

“Listen, my girl is about to pop. I get it, I get it, yall are full. But what if we sleep out in the shit and piss zone with the sheep and the ducks or whatever. Word? Dope. Listen,  my man Ali is late on getting back at me for the concert tickets I hooked him up last week with so I’m low on scratch, but what about this: after the baby comes out, there’s gonna be all sorts of shit those animals can eat coming out next, and that’s like the most nutritious shit on earth, and I won’t even charge you for that, son! So what do you say? Can we sleep in your shit filled garage while my old lady gives birth in exchange for the opportunity for your mule to eat her holy afterbirth or whatever?”

This is not the hustle of a man who has not been dick-slash-balls deep in the situation he’s currently stuck in. So, in conclusion, God’s name is Joe. 

Up next: three rich guys show up with some gifts and shit, which, there’s literally no way that wasn’t weird as hell. Bethlehem is referred to often as a “little town” and from what I’d guess, the “inn” wasn’t exactly a whimsical destination like the Prada outlet in Marfa Texas. As weird as it is, it’s not dissimilar to if Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates and the Sultan of Brunei showed up in that shed in Enumclaw Washington where that guy videotaped himself getting fucked to death by a horse. That’s what’s happening here. Weird. But it gets way weirder.

Imagine if you will, the kinds of people that traverse the land to bring gifts to strange babies the second they’re born. It’s got a real Jeff Epstein, Gary Glitter and your dad vibe, right? I know that there’s a cheap easy joke about how myrrh is essentially vaseline or something, but whatever. That shit is lazy, and myrrh doesn’t even have to be vaseline for this whole thing to still be one of the perviest stories of all time. 

Anyway, this isn’t about that...but I guess that IS the whole reason for the season or whatever. Let’s move on. 

So, how is your christmas? Is it sad? Lonely? Do you love your parents? Hate them? Are you alone? Do you wish you could go out to the dive bar and try to fuck someone from your highschool class (and hey! If you live in a dipshit idiot state, you probably can!).

Here’s what’s up with Christmas: when you’re a kid, it’s great. When you’re a parent, it’s also great, but Chrstmas eve is just a brutal slog in which you finally slink into the wrapping zone after too large of a meal and you realize that “ahhhhhh, shit. We have so much shit to wrap still.” You are full. You are tired. You’re a little drunk. You want to go to bed. Will you be able to go to bed at a reasonable hour? Friends, you will not. 

You will instead become incredibly frustrated with yourself, with tape, with wrapping paper, with ribbon, with a stupid gift tag that you wrote wrong, with your spouse, and ultimately with life itself. You will try, you will grit your teeth attempting to salvage the goodwill that this holiday is theoretically supposed to be all about, but it’s not gonna happen. 

You’ll become increasingly aware that you’ve purchased some serious bullshit and that, since you’re an adult, you’ve already got all the stuff you want because you just buy things when you want or need them these days. You’ll feel like a charlatan. You’ll grow grumpier and more tired and you’ll finally settle into a restless sleep right around the time that your kids have decided that it’s time to get up so they can tear through the shit you’ve spent weeks prepping in about five minutes only to announce that they’re gonna go to their room and play X Box or head over to the neighbors’ house. 

You’ll feel no sense of reward. You’ll become acutely aware of a whole bunch of shit that you now have to find room for in your house. You’ll see the dishes, piled high in the sink, and you’ll see your tie clip or completely artlessly rendered bracelet or whatever and you’ll go, ‘ah. Cool’ under your breath, hyper aware that after one (1!) calendar week, after New Year’s Eve, after the perviest night of the year, it’s just winter forever. It’s a lot like leaving Calgary and heading west in this regard. You go “eh, calgary is fine and it’s a nice distraction” but it’s really only there as a skank filled fairly boring beacon of the truth: Ahead, there is nothing but snow and darkness for a very, very long time. 

Literally, the only good thing about getting onto the other side of Calgary, as it were, is that you don’t have to listen to Christmas music anymore. And this year, there’s not even a chance to get fingerbanged in the bathroom stall at the BW3. There’s nothing. Some of you….hell...some of us may never ever see our loved ones again, and that’s fucking sad and weird. And if everything REALLY goes tits up, you’ll have to watch that Charlie Brown Christmas thing.

Charles Schultz was a noted genius, misanthrope and philosophical nihilist. His comic strip reflected this in a nuanced and sophisticated way (particularly for the time) that is often overlooked. He was reportedly FURIOUS about that Christmas special, which is essentially nothing but the bible, and frankly, I don’t blame him. If Joel Osteen made a christmas special out of my band’s work and it was all religious in tone, I’d be livid. I’ve seen that shit probably twice as many times as years I’ve been alive, and I’ve grown to hate it like I hate church.

BUT! It’s christmas, and the part where you see your loved ones together, if you’re lucky enough to be in a situation where you can do that this year, is undeniable. And there’s just a general good vibe that goes along with the holiday. In WWI they stopped shelling each other on Christmas day and met in the disputed zone and broke bread. That’s kinda bigger than humanity. I mean, if someone was trying to kill me, it’s not like Diddy could roll up with a thing of Vaseline and talk me out of killing him back, but I digress…

From all of us here at Bad Sandwich Chronicles Beyond Thunderdome, have a merry christmas and happy holidays. AND if you’re still behind on your shopping, by all means, give the gift of words. It wouldn’t be Christmas without some shameless capitalism, right? 

Anyway. Love ya all. Be good to each other. xoxoxoxo