Once My Looks Go, I've Got Nothing

     The nightmare starts the same, every time. I'm out for a stroll in the jungle, and no matter how exhausted I may get, I can never stop walking. Wild animals, insects and weird fish attack me for reasons beyond my comprehension, and I ward them off by throwing that most primitive of weapons: the rock. Eventually, I happen upon a stone axe within some underbrush, and just as I'm starting to feel good about my chances of survival in this savage wilderness, the lily pads appear on the horizon, and my heart fills with despair...      I was seven years old when this photo was taken on Christmas Eve:      For most of my life, my family has been on the lower end of the disposable income spectrum. However, there was a time, so long ago in my youth, when my grandparents were doing pretty well financially. This meant that Christmas would entail a veritable bonanza of gifts from them, which in my case meant several Nintendo games. As you can see, I'm pretty pleased with my

Let’s face it: Christmas is the 800 pound gorilla of holidays. All other celebrations and festivals bow before its merry might. Some time in mid-August, when the air is crisp and the aroma of gingerbread-scented tanning lotion fills the air, the Christmas decorations begin to pop up in the bowels of Michael’s and Big Lots, and by the time Halloween rolls around, said decorations have already surged forth to populate storefronts everywhere. Such is the power of Christmas, and every year reminders of it pop up just a bit earlier than the last. It thus stands to reason that this holiday juggernaut would have innumerable songs dedicated to it, glorious hymns to sign aloud while roasting a freshly slaughtered turkey, pheasant or goose. Today I would like to talk about a few Christmas songs that have caught my interest over the years due to the simple fact that their existence is, well, inexplicable. And I don’t mean songs like “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer,” that we’re all so fam