The Santa Pause: A Summer Primer

Don't worry, it's not technically child abuse.

Da-da grew up in the desert. Someone had to. This means all those summer dreams of smiley picnics and BBQs and cookouts and volleyball and beach frolics mean absolutely nothing to Da-da. In the desert, summers are brutal, to be avoided; you get to feeling like a bat, stuck inside all day in the coolness of your cave, hanging upside down, going out only at night. Well, maybe that's just Da-da. Anyway, it's hot in the desert in summer. No. HOT. Dry. Dead. Tires stick to the driveway. Everything's brown, dessicated. You get the idea. Weatherwise, the only time anything happens in the desert is in the fall, winter and spring. So, those who see winter as a lifeless season... well, that's how Da-da sees summer. Needless to say, Da-da doesn't look forward to summer much, but he manages to get through as he used to get through it: with Christmas music.

And now, if you could please stop punching your Da-da doll a moment, Da-da will explain.

Seems the only times Da-da was happy as a kid was when school was out -- esp. during Christmas vacation/winter break, when Da-da would put on a huge stack-O-Xmas music and proceed to build one hellaciously enormoid Gothic Christmas diorama in the living room all week before the main event, sorta like this but with more zing:

This was a small one.

As a recovering musician (jazz and classical), a love for Christmas music is pretty much Da-da's main personality flaw, apart from that inner troll thing. And we're not talking Barbara Streisand Christmas music here, or John Tesh Christmas music, or any of the current, fey pretty-boy dredge-pop effluvia that should never ever ever be listened to, not even by prisoners. No, Da-da's talking about tasty Christmas music: Vince Guaraldi (who did the music for all the Charlie Brown specials), Art Tatum, Red Garland, Oscar Peterson, Dexter Gordon, Ellington.... Those guys, playing mostly instrumental Christmas music, peppered with the odd tasty dead vocalist from way back when you could buy white bread or say the words, "Merry Christmas," without cringing.

99.99% of musicians find Da-da's musical aberration horrifying. Da-da is, in fact, a monster to them. Rocks are thrown. Invectives hurled. Fires are set. Da-da certainly doesn't find fault with any of this abuse. Hey, some people like, "Mork & Mindy." And Da-da can totally take a punch and be just fine. Just don't try it twice, Chuck.

This is how most musicians react to Christmas music.

Anyway, Da-da tries not to inflict his Hideous Summer Yule on others, but his children are being tangentially exposed, musically, on occasion, BUT hold up on that big red CHILD ABUSE button a sec. Da-da mixes things up with Space Pop, Monster Pop, bizarre sound FX, old Disneyland ride soundtracks, jazz and classical, the sound of crickets, all salted with a tinny '30s jazz substrate. Da-da can't stand anything contemporary; music is so redundantly bad these days that Da-da treats it like Vincent Price treated vampires in, "The Last Man on Earth."

So, the logical question that forms in any rational person's mind is: IS DA-DA A MUSIC NAZI?

Well, he does have the mustache, but he keeps it in his Bad Mall Santa Da-da suit. Jeez, what do you expect from a guy who hangs upside down in a cave like a bat all summer listening to Christmas music?

[By the way, special thanks to Da-da's old college friend, BADLANDS, for shaving off (most of) Da-da's Music Nazi Mustache. A former college DJ and barking dog music aficionado (aficionada?), BADLANDS helped Da-da see the value in all kinds of music... well, except rap. Sorry, B. Da-da hates rap. Ok, so Da-da might have a little Music Nazi stubble, but one does need to discriminate a little, otherwise, we'd all still be watching, "Mork & Mindy," while hanging upside down and listening to Christmas music.]

Na-nu, na-.... Nah.