Tag Archives: songs

Goodbye, Uncle Sam

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I’ve updated an article I wrote for The Canberra Times in 2012.  The argument was that we had to embrace Asia. Back then, I said we’d have to forego ‘Donald Trump’ too. OMG! What did I see in my CRYSTAL BALL? Now, America no longer loves us. So we have to say:

Goodbye, Uncle Sam!

We, Aussies, must address a fundamental truth in 2026. It can be our joint New Year’s resolution. It will be hard. It will take discipline and courage, but it is time to give up America. Say ‘Goodbye to Uncle Sam.’
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We’ll have to turn off the Idiot Box – Most of the idiots we’ve been watching have been American – and say Farewell to:
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That channel streaming Two and a Half Idiots, I mean, Men 24/7.
The West Wing. The East Wing’s gone.
Porky Pig
The Kardashians
All NCIS franchises
The Fat Cops in Cars reality TV shows
And those really old actors pretending to be, like, cool teenagers in High School TV dramas
The Abisizer Exerciser
Every crazy kitchen gadget on the Ad Channel that saves time, except for the 3 weeks needed to clean it.
And, Hawaiian Barbecue Chicken Pizza
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We have to say Tat Tah to:
Tay Tay 
Lady Gaga and her BBQ couture Dress. Her pork chop clown-gown.
Bruce Springsteen. I’m sorry to see The Boss go but – Bloody Hell! – he had us all singing ‘Born in the USA’. 
And cease and desist from singing or even humming a song with a US town name, including:
 New York. New York 
Do You Know The Way To San Jose? 
Or, any song about Georgia. They’re too depressing.
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We will have to go ‘cold turkey’ and forego:
All sneakers, especially the ones that look like fluoro-pink lace-up alien parasites.
And baseball caps. What is the point of wearing a peak cap backwards, anyway?
Wu Tang and P Diddy duds
Victoria’s- poorly kept – Secret
Billionaire tech Wankers
Hedge fund #$%## ( Add your own expletive.)
and Elon (Not a big ask, there.)
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We’ll have to cut out:
Bubble Gum
Upsize super cholesterol-overdose blubber burgers 
Mega-buckets of limp fries
And all their killer Combos. 
Colossus cups of Pepsi and Coke, but not all at once. If you are a real soda pop addict, you might want to step this one down. Try 5 litres on day 1, then 4 day 2, and so on. Or go to the chemist and get a Cola patch to stop you twitching. 
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We’ll have to throw out all those self-help books like:
Feel the fear and do it anyway (Try, Feel the Fear and Go Back to Bed)
Awaken the giant within (Maybe try, Awaken the Whinging Dwarf Within)
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We must give up conspiracy theories involving:
 UFOs
 JFK 
Elvis
The Moon landing Hoax. Of course, they played golf on the moon.
Keep Epstein, perhaps. 
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We must give up taking:
 Prozac 
Valium (If you stop following US politics, you may not feel so depressed or anxious)
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We, Aussies, must turn our backs on:
 Wall Street. 
Stretch Limos
Googling
Lycra (Not too much of a sacrifice there.)
Nike. 
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Come on Australia. Just do it. Damn! Oh well, have a nice day.

Jinglehideousis: Fear of Christmas Carols

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From my Christmas Archives:

It is official. Listening to hours of hideous Christmas carols piped through stores and shopping malls during December is not good for your health. 

In 2004, the Austrian Trade Union Federation spokesman Gottfried Riesser said, ‘This is psychological terror for shop workers’. A study by the union found the piped Christmas Carols make workers ‘aggressive and confrontational.’ The union has asked retail stores to tone it down. This would indeed benefit us all.

 As if listening to Frosty the Snowman sung by the Hallucinating Choristers is not torture enough, now we have to endure demented yuletide ringtones, including:

— A Funky Jazz Jingle Bells that sounds like the sleigh horse trod on a live power line.

—A Techno Deck the Halls that sounds like a xylophone attacked by a machine gun. 

I was reared on cuckoo Christmas carols. In the 1960s we owned 3 EPs one was:

— Bobby ‘Boris’ Picket’s The Monster’s Holiday:

Twas the night before Christmas when all through the castle

My monsters were having a yuletide hassle

The tree was all trimmed in foolish things

Like Werewolf fangs and vampire wings. 

So popular was this pre-drug-era psychedelic song, its author, Ross Bagdasarian, thought he’d try Christmas Carol writing, producing …  the terrifyingly popular ‘The Chipmunk Song (Christmas don’t be late)’ sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks. Unfortunately, they sounded like a choir of over-excited castrated rats. I still have the Alvin and the Chipmunks LP. (That’s a record for anyone born… forget it.)

There is too much hideous Christmas music about because every man and his dog has to make a Christmas Album. One year, the Singing Dogs barked their way through Jingle Bells. They would be TikTok stars today. Correction. YouTube stars.

While WHAM, or George Michael to be accurate, could croon a suitably soulful Christmas ballad, namely  Last Christmas, other singers just don’t suit the Christmas Carol vibe. For instance:

—Johnny Cash singing ‘Joy to the World’ is so depressing, you feel like taking out the turkey and whacking your own head in the oven. 

— Snoop Dogg’s Christmas in tha Dogg House makes you wonder if someone has spiked the Egg Nog with Special K … Ketamine, not the breakfast cereal.

—And Goofy singing the 12 Days of Christmas has you asking Santa for a shotgun.

Then there was church. None of the Christmas Carols sung at church are hideous, but many Christmas Carols can be sung hideously. My family was always late for Midnight Mass at St Mary’s, which, by the way, was just over the road from our house in Kyneton, Vic, so we always ended up jammed into back pews next to the local drunks. I can still hear that slow, off-key drunken version of Silent Night:

Shilend nide, olly nide, oilish carm, oilish ride

Rown yon vershon, muffer an shild

Yep! There is some pretty bad music about at this time of the year. Stay calm. Shove a bit of tinsel in each ear and, as the drunks would say, have a  Merrrrrreeeee Chridgemash.