Oh, the humanity...oh ring out Solstace Bells...ring them bells!!!

I had to drive into the installation from the Crossroads of Opportunity this morning. Doctor wanted to yell at me and I was overdue for that; was also going to meet a friend for coffee to try and comfort her in an un-comfort-able situation, and pick up my mail. Only thing of interest was Texas Monthly with Dancin' Tom Delay on the cover celebrating his award as Dick of the Year doing a full Saturday Night Fever thing...the doctor had fun poking and prodding, then we wandered through the clinic looking for a scale that worked because the defense funding bill hasn't filtered down to the Army hospitals yet, and it's been a choice between batteries for the scales or medicine. They have gone with medicine. Smart choice. I went over to meet my friend, and found Starbucks closed, and people doing the walk up, read the sign, try the door, read the sign and walk away despairingly. She never showed, the wind was howling like a hammer (poetry anyone?) and after a while I hit the road. While driving in there was a great Steve Earle tune played on The Underground Garage; while driving home, there was a bit where Steven Van Zandt was talking about Edie, one of Andy Warhol's Circus who had something of an influence on Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone...Dylan tried successfully to woe her away from Warhol to his manager, Albert Grossman, largely because Dylan hated Warhol. Warhol reciprocated. Supposedly, Like a Rolling Stone was inspired by Edie and her relationship with Warhol...with the talentless hack inspiring the lines "used to ride on your chrome horse with your diplomat/who carried on his shoulder a Siamese Cat/ain't it hard to discover that/he really wasn't where it's at/after he took from you everything, he could steal? How does it feel..." Horrid, I suspect. And then, Steven announced that Dylan had the coolest song of the week...which got me thinking about Christmas.

Well, the Steve Earle song was Hard Core Troubadour, which was kind of about Townes Van Zandt and kind of about him and probably a bit about Dylan. However, Mr. Earle has written a pretty amazing and still relevant song about Christmas.

I can think of no one who embodies the sadness of Christmas for the outsider so much as Bob Dylan. I know that Christmas is not so sad for most, but for many, it is tragic. For example, my friend just lost her infant grand daughter three weeks before Christmas. The child's first Christmas...and knowing Consuela, she was locked and loaded to imprint good things on the child,as I believe she already had done. How do you comfort grieving parents and grandmothers just before Christmas?

I've lost relationships, friends, jobs, and hope around Christmas. It helps to remember that Christmas probably took place if it did in fact happen, in March in 7AD or so. And, that the alternatives for Mary had Joseph not taken her in were stoning...actually that was the only alternative. Joseph showed real defeatist tendencies here and a similarity to AXE's First Rule...Don't be a Jerk.

However, even someone as jaded, cynical and misanthropic as Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes has Christmas complexities. They haven't all been horrible. I recall going to Midnight Mass in a 11th century church in Berchtesgaden, and realizing that I understood the German better than I might the English...hearing Silent Night played on zither, autoharp and guitar was amazing. I recall waking up one Christmas morning incredibly hung over after me and the gang had linked up on Christmas Eve to celebrate surviving that first year in college...Daddy AXE took one look and told my sister to get me a beer. It had gotten below zero overnight, and she brought me in a 16 OZ Bud from the unheated garage...which I opened, instantly redecorating the kitchen and myself...I believe that Dad set me up...

Tiffany has not made herself manifest to us in a Solstace myth, thank god. We already watch a society flounder on it...I think her feast is Black Friday, and if people are not trampled and killed in at least one Walmart, she will gain vengence throughout the year; although, a cop pulling a gun in a snowball fight probably makes up for it. If not, it probably amused Biff, on whom we have been silent for a long time, and intend to remain so for a longer time. And, if Dylan seems more Krampus than Gary Busey in full demon-drag could ever think of being, he continues to astound by not being what we think he must.

This should be understood as a bit of a round; the camera pans around, and the lyrics keep coming back. The use of an accordion and drums as the instruments strikes me as perfect although there's a bass in the background somewhere as well as a piano. I initially thought he was collaborating with Flanco Jiminez on this one. It reminds me a beer hall polka somewhere in Texas -- up around Fredricksberg or Neu Braunfels. I keep wondering if the accordion player isn't really Tom Waits, and is that Little Steven dancing in the doorway at one point? The Dylan in this picture looks healthier and like he's having fun -- that only happens normally when he's playing with a really great band.

Speaking of which, I had trouble finding this one, but we used it earlier, and for some reason Dylan's Santa made me think of it...so here's Mr. Steve again...