I need the Holiday Holy Ghost to visit me
I hate the fucking holidays. I wish I didn’t. I wish I could get into the vibez or even wanted to but it all feels endlessly phony to me. I didn’t grow up with a family that felt super beholden to Christmas or holiday traditions. In fact the most traditional thing about us is the fact that on thanksgiving we actually have the typical dinner everyone else has. We don’t really visit any other families and we damn sure aren’t exactly warm and gift-giving. As a result when that 4 week run from Thanksgiving to New Years kicks off each year, it feels so off. Its closest life feels like a dream: things are hazy, nobody is working, I’m being annoyed with family obligation and I’m eating too much.
When I see the families of my friends or women I’ve dated, I get a tinge of jealousy over their many (in some cases too many) rituals and family traditions centered around this period. I’ve wished to have grown up the same way and sporadically through the years I’ve even tried to start a few, but it never takes. Truthfully I’m too far gone to really give the effort. I’d hope that if I were to have kids that I would finally be motivated but I truly can’t get past the utter indifference and annoyance about everything having to do with the holidays. At least it’s an excuse to dress fresh and eat a lot; maybe put on some ill jewelry, the Pyer Moss Reeboks and stunt on my own family.
Movie Diary:
I was watching too many movies before the pandemic and now I’ve really pushed things hard. Will I watch every film? I’ll certainly try. Speaking of holidays, I don’t enjoy Christmas movies. They’re not my thing at all in the slightest. The Grinch is cool, Charlie Brown is always fun, and I liked A Christmas Story as a kid, but I just don’t have enough love for the holidays to enjoy these movies. I’m not a “Die Hard is a Christmas movie” guy but I’d still watch that over anything else on that day. Throw in Goodfellas and Eyes Wide Shut and close things out with Friday After Next and now you have a pretty good counter-program for Jesus day. I’m sure the Lord wouldn’t mind relaxing to a movie about satanic rituals and Tom Cruise’s bad marriage being interrogated by an insane director. Here are my fave movies to watch during the holiday season:
The Godfather part 1 and 2
Goodfellas
Eyes Wide Shut
The Handmaiden
Heat
Casino
If Beale Street Could Talk
Little Women
Love & Basketball
Crooklyn
Music Stuff
I don’t know if streaming is ruining music or just ruining my enjoyment of it. The race to create artificial platinum album releases and bland #mood records for generic playlists has made every pop record sound the same and actually discourages the invention of anything original or oddball. I am also old and indifferent so maybe it doesn’t matter what I think. It just feels like the entire history of music should amount to something more than feed for an algorithm to decide how best to market itself to you. Anyways, I’d be a lot happier if Whole Lotta Red would finally come out.
The Best Music I’ve Listened To This Past Month:
Jazmine Sullivan - “Pick Up Your Feelings”
Lil Keed - Trapped on Cleveland Deluxe
Victoria Monét - Jaguar
Barely Civil - I’ll Figure This Out
Lil Dude - No Talking
Wizkid - Made In Lagos
Ty Dolla $ign - “By Yourself (ft. Jhene Aiko & Mustard)”
Last Call:
Nostalgia is suffering. Pain that you’ve convinced yourself feels good actually. It’s the fog that blinds you and surrounds you totally, making you unable to see the mack truck bearing down on you, sure to smash you into pieces. Quarantined at home, convinced you’ve seen every movie worth seeing twice already with nothing left to conquer, it’s easy to let nostalgia take over for a couple hours. Trick your brain into believing it could’ve been better, if only… if only. The holidays make nostalgia so much worse than at any point in the year. All that longing and all that regret, too fragile to ever touch let alone repair it. Instead you can only replay it all in your head, inventing happier endings, inventing also some of the details, inventing so much you aren’t sure which parts actually happened and which didn’t. Maybe the real reason “All I Want For Christmas Is You” stands up each year is because longing is that universal, we’re all hoping to make the euphoria of nostalgia a tangible reality.
