despicable. inevitable. that awful boy george song playing on loop. christmas is turning me into an italian futurist. burn all the radios, rape all the elves.

that’s mean. when else does anybody ever listen to boy george? it must be so lonesome, to be a boy george song. what would you do all day? like the old periodicals in library basements. become slowly yellow and irrelevant.

then the buying of things. stupid contract. empty, meaningless transaction: I give you money, you give me a book or a CD or something. no arguing over worth, fairness, etc. it’s on the sticker. stick to the sticker. you end up getting sticked. you  have to. it’s not just the nature of the holiday, it’s every time you buy something- I give you a piece of paper which, honestly, isn’t good for much more than cleaning the windows, and you give me another thing to throw out. that’s the beauty of capitalism: it’s so self-contained.

why? because it’s “that time of year again.” which completely baffles me. the heisenberg uncertainty principle, about no two points in any orbit being exactly the same. think about that. how could it possibly be that time of year? no, it’s not. it’s just not. it could be “around that time of year,” but it couldn’t be “that time of year again.” it is physically impossible to pinpoint it. which explains why they play carols for a month and a half. they want to make sure they cover the whole season- put a blanket of redundant shitty music on the radio just in case our little blue orb trips over the exact same spot it did last year, the one that triggered- holy shit- santa claus! from delivering all our presents!

I don’t even know where to begin on that one, the santa claus thing. a guy in a red suit that delivers presents every year, without fail. can santa meet this impossible quota every year? of course. he has santa magic. my hope is that more people become disillusioned with the idea of an existent santa not because it’s impossible, but because they get bored with the story. oh look, he’s done it again. ninth year in a row.

I’ve never hoped more that Kurt Vonnegut didn’t celebrate this meaningless holiday. it breaks two rules of his: don’t use suspense, because it’s perverse, and don’t waste your characters’ time, nor your audience’s. if I were santa claus- if all that characterization got stuck on my body- I’d be pretty pissed. it’s a pretty shitty job. you do the same thing every year. you have to condemn the guilty. you have to meet height and weight requirements. it’s pretty isolated up there, and who knows what the marriage would be like?

why is he jolly? because he makes children happy. does he have children of his own? no. he’s living vicariously through other peoples’ kids. he’s delusional. add to that the inevitable realization that his entire existence is to provide the children of consumers with the illusion of something magical existing in the world and i’d probably welcome the possibility of a trip on a light speed sleigh melting my face off like raiders of the lost ark.

and even when that gift gets there. it never stops. I’ll give that to another person. nothing’s really at stake. when you step back from it, it sounds boring: you go to bed knowing that the only thing you have to do to open presents the next day is to, uh, continue to exist. what about when there are no presents to open? your existence becomes less meaningful. you could compose a symphony or climb a mountain or do something of meaning or something- but would you open presents? well, shit, christmas isn’t for eight months, what are you doing out of bed?

what comes after christmas? boxing day. throw shit out day. if ours wasn’t a disposable culture, we’d have slightly better music on this month. the only redemption is the implication that you’re supposed to give gifts, too, and you look like an asshole if you don’t. there’s some chance of failure and humiliation- there’s something at stake, even though it’s several degrees removed from the immediate physical limitations which often make a thing important. it ought to be about trading. I’ll trade somebody a computer for a rowboat. the car radio and wrapping paper? yours for free. my gift to you.