My favorite Christmas songs, categorized and kinda ranked
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...will not make this list, but I agree with the sentiment.
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...will not make this list, but I agree with the sentiment.
In a recent Weekender, I shared my Starting Five Christmas Songs from a past holiday episode of The Stretch Four podcast 1. I stand by my attempt to create a basketball-style roster of songs where each slot fills a particular role based on the corresponding bball position. It holds up as a great representation of my taste in Christmas Music, but is a bit limited by the (very creative and fun) format that we created for the pod.
So I’m here to get cheeks-deep 2 into the Holiday Spirit and share my favorite Holiday songs, separated into categories based on how I think about Christmas/Holiday/Seasonal music.
Here’s what I mean. I could just do a list of my 25 Favorite Christmas Songs, or whatever, but instead I’m giving you a deeper look into my brain by listing the songs based on what kind of playlist I’d put them on. Here are the categories:
Traditional/Religious
Does the song hyper-focus on Baby Jesus? Are you falling on your knees at the presence of angels? Would you sing it in church? It belongs here.
Standards
These are songs that, if you were going to make a Christmas Album, you’d think about covering. Classics that are less focused on the religious part of the season. Songs that I would consider not belonging to anybody in particular, and everybody might have a different favorite version by a different artist.
Originals
These are songs that, if you covered them, one 3 might ask, “Why?” They are so singularly identified as belonging to the person who created them that there’s no need for anybody to create a new version, in my mind, at least.
Alt X-Mas
Songs that buck the tradition in one way or another. Whether they rock super hard, or are a little bit silly (but not too silly, that comes next), or a lot of bit funky, or look at the season from a new perspective. There’s a thin line between this and “Originals” in some cases, but I’m just gonna go with my gut as to where I feel like the song belongs.
Novelty/Kids
Songs for children. Good thing that at the holidays, kids can be anywhere from one to 92 (sorry 93-year-olds, you’ve aged out of kiddom.)
Instrumentals
Because why not.
I’m not going to put any arbitrary rules here where I limit the number of songs per artist; I’m just going to blurt out my favs. I also started out trying to rank them, but then the more songs I remembered and the longer these lists grew I didn’t want to nitpick over the nuance of what my 7th favorite and 8th favorite Original Christmas songs were. 4 I didn’t even keep the same number of songs in each category, I just went as long as I could confidently say that these were my favorite songs.
Okay, now that you know the rules that I made up on the fly, let’s get into the lists!
Traditional/Religious
Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy - Bing Crosby & David Bowie
This is slightly a cheat of a pick because while The Little Drummer Boy is indeed a religious song that is mostly about the Baby Jesus, the Peace on Earth part would fall under “Originals,” but whatever, this is my list, so it’s my favorite.
The Bells of St. Mary - Bob B. Soxx & The Blue Jeans
The power of the wall of sound is on full display here, knocking my dang socks off. It’s a rocking version of a more traditional song, and sometimes that just elevates it to new heights…
O Come All Ye Faithful - Nat “King” Cole
…and sometimes “traditional traditional” is the way to go. It’s going to be really hard not to put almost every song from this album on this list. I will try to exhibit some restraint.
Do You Hear What I Hear? - Whitney Houston
I hear a G.D. banger, that’s what I hear.
Silent Night - The Temptations
Just close your eyes and feel this one from the bottom of your soul.
O Holy Night - Celine Dion
I chose Celine’s version of this song because I think it strikes the right balance of a slightly haunting but sweet beginning, building up to a powerful crescendo. Josh Groban’s version is the churchiest, Mariah Carey’s is injected with a shot of pop music flair, and Nat “King” Cole’s version is fantastic, 5 and while relistening to it (right now as I write this) it’s hard not to actually pick his version, but I’m gonna stick with Celine. I feel pretty good about that choice now that ol’ King Cole is done singing because I don’t think he sticks the landing as powerfully as the Canadian Queen.
Standards
The Christmas Song - Nat “King” Cole
There’s no better name for this song. You can call it “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” if you want, or even its official parenthetical name “(Merry Christmas to You),” but this is just “The” Christmas Song. It’s three minutes of pure seasonal joy, warms me up from the inside out like a bowl of soup after coming in from the cold.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Frank Sinatra
Along with The Christmas Song, this one hits me the most in my heart. It’s a little bit sad and sentimental, which is how Christmas feels to me. There’s no wrong way to list your favorite Christmas songs, and I think everybody’s list is connected with their memories and feelings about the holidays. I think of Christmas as cozy and warm, but there’s also a tinge of sadness — from a mix of nostalgia and remembering loved ones who aren’t with us anymore, and partly just because I’m no longer literally a child. 6 While Judy Garland’s version is the original, it drags a bit too much for it to be my favorite version. Frank hits the sweet spot and, of course, his voice is just butter.
Sleigh Ride - The Ronettes
The “Ring-a-ling-a-ling-a-ding-dong-ding” in the background is one of the things in this world that brings me the most joy.
White Christmas - Otis Redding
Good lord.
White Christmas - The Drifters
Sure, Bing’s version is the original, but Otis Redding and The Drifters versions are my favorites. It’s probably because Otis Redding is the man and the Drifters’ version is connected to its use in Home Alone, but it’s also livelier, more fun, and doesn’t make me feel a little bit like I’m celebrating some kind of wink-and-a-nudge racism.
Ray Charles - Winter Wonderland
The way he hits the three syllables in “beautiful” would land this song somewhere on this list alone. This song sounds like the coolest frolic of all time.
Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow! - Dean Martin
Jaunty and fun, and when it comes to jaunty and fun, Dean Martin is the go-to guy. I thought about having another category here of “Wintery Tunes” that aren’t technically about Christmas but are seasonal, but I decided to just keep those kind of songs here.
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas - Bing Crosby
Here you go, Bing. You can have this spot.
Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
I view this song as sort of a companion piece to the (in my opinion) superior '“Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” The guitar on this song is pure ‘50s rockabilly Christmas joy.
I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong
What a team. The piano dances around and their voices just sound so good together.
A Holly Jolly Christmas - Burl Ives
A goofball of a song. But I’m a goofball and I love goofball things.
(There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays - Perry Como
If a song is about home and also about Pennsylvania, you got me, I’m your sucker. Como’s corniness only adds to the enjoyment here for me.
Originals
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love
I think it’s the GOAT Christmas song. It’s either this or “The Christmas Song”, please don’t make me think too much about it and pick. If you have a spare two hours, you should watch this compilation of Love singing the song on Late Night with David Letterman throughout the years (tip of the hat to Luke Giordano for putting me on to this beauty of a collection).
Merry Christmas Baby - Otis Redding
Good lord.
Okay I’ll say more this time. Otis Redding is my choice for frontman in any hypothetical “build a band” draft. I don’t think he’s my favorite voice of all time (that would be Sam Cooke) but he’s near the very top of my list. Sort of breaking a rule here regarding how songs in this category are uncoverable because Bruce Springsteen’s version gets a pass.
This Christmas - Donny Hathaway
A groove and a bop. I thought about including this on the “Alt X-Mas” list because it’s almost more of just an R&B love song than it is a pure Christmas song, but it’s Christmasy enough to make it here.
Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree - Brenda Lee
This song is the equivalent of getting the perfect amount of tipsy, where you feel great and are loose and having the most fun, but you don’t have to worry about being hungover or doing something stupid that you’ll regret. The kind of drunk that if alcohol weren’t an addictive poison, I would want to feel like all the time. I mean, I still kind of want to feel like that all the time, but I can’t do it with alcohol; that would be bad. Good thing this song exists.
All I Want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey
I couldn’t put this any lower on the list. It’s the musical equivalent of an adrenaline shot to the heart. But of happiness and joy.
What Christmas Means to Me - Stevie Wonder
Stevie kind of just lists a bunch of Christmas stuff and it works. It really warms my heart while also serving as a checklist of what I need to prepare for the season. My one knock with this song, and it isn’t really a knock on this song (but I think mentally affects my enjoyment of it, unless I catch it and say “knock that off”) is that a lot of modern, pop, original Christmas songs try to sound like it — while also trying be so bland and boring that Target will pick them up to put into one of their commercials. That’s not this song’s fault at all though. This song rules. Those other ones can kick rock.
I also love Stevie’s “Someday at Christmas” but its hopeful message of one day having peace has been making me too sad lately. I think its something about the fact that the song is almost 60 years old and his “maybe not in time for you and me” lyric is still hauntingly relevant and I can’t sing along to the song while in the vacinity of my baby without getting a terrible ache in my heart.
Happy Xmas (War is Over) - John Lennon, Yoko Ono
Speaking of a hopeful message of one day having peace on Christmas…for some reason this one doesn’t make me quite as sad as when Stevie reminds us that our lifetime may be filled with war.
Wonderful Christmastime - Paul McCartney
This song gets way too much shit. It makes me happy and I truly love the message of just having a simple, wonderful Christmastime. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.
It also serves as a nice counter to the very serious protest song from Lennon, like the two of them really leaned in their own directions after their split and nowhere is it more obvious than in their Christmas songs.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays - *NSYNC
I unironically love this song and will (and have) danced in the aisles when it comes on in Target. 7 I feel like stopping after mentioning this song is a good place because including it means I’m heading into wacky land but also stopping here feels bad because including this and leaving other stuff off feels wrong.
Alt X-Mas
Run Rudolph Run - Chuck Berry
“All I want for Christmas is a rock ‘n roll electric guitar.” Hell yeah, now I do.
Fairytale of New York - The Pogues
I can see a better time, when all our dreams come true.
Oh, fuck, I’m crying again.
Father Christmas - The Kinks
The Kinks are on my short list of favorite bands, and a song about robbing rich people (and also Santa Claus?) at Christmas time as dirty little poor (British) street urchins rules so fucking hard.
Christmas Time Again - Tom Petty
This is the best contemporary Christmas song when bopping around in a Christmas rush. A lot of people love The Waitresses Christmas Wrapping, but it never hit for me because of how negative it is about Christmastime. Tom Petty loves that it’s Christmastime, and so do I.
Just Another Christmas Song (This Time I’ll Sing Along) - Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings
The title of this song is a lie. It is in no way “just another” Christmas song.
Christmas Will Really Be Christmas - Lou Rawls
The horns are too damn filthy to put this on “the originals” list. This grooves too hard, I have to put it here.
Merry Xmas Everybody - Slade
This song aggressively wants everybody to have a Merry Xmas. It’s in your face about it. “Everybody’s having fun” sounds less like a declaration and more like a threat, but I’m here for it.
Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want to Fight Tonight) - The Ramones
My family used to get into fights in the car on the way to most major holiday celebrations so this one really hits for me.
Christmas is the Time to Say “I Love You” - Billy Squire
This song sounds like putting your arm around friends in a boozy, end-of-the-night singing circle. That, as much as childhood joy, is a big part of Christmas and how the Christmas season should feel.
Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys
Surf music about Christmas!
Christmas in Hollis - Run DMC
“Don’t you have any Christmas music?”
“This is Christmas music!”
Please Come Home for Christmas - Eagles
It’s the only Eagles song I can stand.
Novelty/Kids
It Feels Like Christmas - Ghost of Christmas Present - Muppets Christmas Carol
This song makes me weep like a little baby, every time I hear it. I probably listen to this song less often than I want to, just because I don’t want to tear up while I’m driving and be a danger to myself and others on the road. “It’s true wherever you find love, it feels like Christmas” is an all-timer of a line. Oh, my heart!
Frosty the Snowman - The Ronettes
I wonder what Gene Autry did the first time he heard this version.
You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch - Thurl Ravenscroft
For more about my thoughts on this song, read this piece.
A way-too-far deep dive into my favorite lyric in the song 'You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch"
Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town - Bruce Springsteen
Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town - The Jackson Five
More Gene Autry covers that take the singing cowboy’s originals to another level. I couldn’t just pick one version here. They’re each great in their own way. Slight nod to Springsteen’s live version because of how fun it sounds to be at that concert.
Welcome Christmas - Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas
Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.
Up On The House Top - Gene Autry
This was my favorite of the kids Christmas songs when I was a kid, and that should count for something on this list.
Instrumental
Somewhere in my Memory - John Williams
This song is just pure magic. And so is Home Alone.
The Entire Vince Guaraldi Trio Charlie Brown Christmas & Oscar Peterson’s An Oscar Peterson Chrismas albums
I just had to put these entire albums on as faves and call it a day here. The deeper I dove into Christmas music the more songs I didn’t want to leave out here. I just love Christmas music way too much. I probably forgot a lot of stuff. I’m tired. Doing this list was a bad idea.
Did I leave something off that you’re mad about? Mention it and I’ll tell you my thoughts about it. Maybe it slipped my mind but maybe there’s a reason why I left it off. Wouldn’t you like to know?
1 Which is on a break for now until I figure out my schedule with a baby. WE WILL RETURN!
2 Face cheeks, not butt-cheeks. That’s how deep!
3 The “one” in this situation is me, I guess, because it’s my list and my opinions.”
4 I’m not a music journalist, I’m just a guy having fun writing about Christmas music..
5 As is his entire Christmas album.
6 But will always be somewhat figuratively a child.
7 Playing IN a Target is much different than playing in a Target COMMERCIAL.
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I am at the hospital every single day because I am SO STRONG and SO HEALTHY
Since everybody seems to be all up in my business, they have started to notice that I go to the hospital every single day, without fail. And since everybody is also a chatty little gossip bitch they all can’t stop speculating about why I’m there and what I’m doing while I’m there.
Since everybody seems to be all up in my business, they have started to notice that I go to the hospital every single day, without fail. And since everybody is also a chatty little gossip bitch they all can’t stop speculating about why I’m there and what I’m doing while I’m there.
So I’m here to put an end to all of the rumors about what I’m doing at the hospital and no it’s not getting “treatment” for any “diseases” or “visiting” a “loved one” or “forcing an unwanted visit” on “Make-a-Wish kids who would rather meet John Cena.”
I’m there so they can do tests on my body because the doctors all tell me they’ve never seen anybody as strong and healthy as me and they need to figure out what’s up because they for real think I might be a super person just naturally by birth or at least had some kind of good chemical accident that made me the way that I am and they need to test it to figure out if I’m like a one of one or if this could possibly be used to strengthen other people to the level I am or maybe if I’m the first in a new line of evolution or something and it’s taking a while to figure it all out that’s why I’m there every day and for so many hours each day, okay!
Every doctor tells me this. Every single one of them. They told me not to tell anybody else but I have to tell you so you know so you’ll stop talking all this junk about me.
To answer more of your questions that pain in my left arm is because its got so much muscle in it. It’s called a “growing pain” and it hurts like that because more muscle is growing in it almost all the time. I’m not even working out it just does that on its own. And the nausea is because I’m sick to my stomach at being the only person who is as strong as me. It’s pain because of how much I want other people to be able to be as great as me and they’re not and that makes me feel bad and lonely like nobody could ever understand me because I’m so much better than them. And the numbness in my arms and legs is to protect me from hurting myself from punching and kicking so hard when I have to punch and kick because only I can hurt myself with my own power but not anymore because of the numbness. And it’s hard to breathe because I might be from another planet and I just haven’t adjusted to the atmosphere here yet.
So that’s why I’m at the hospital every day and the machines they hook me up to is because I let them and the machines suck out some of my power and use it to run computer data centers or something because that’s how much power is in me. I’m basically a new source of energy. I’m the new oil but I didn’t have to get juiced for millions of years underground I just have the energy juice inside me. I’m like a freaking modern day, walking, talking dinosaur that didn’t have to die to become power. But I’m pretty much stronger than a dinosaur too, because of the whole thing with my left arm.
At least this is what all the doctors have told me.
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Please allow me to gleefully hop-on the latest express train to Sam-Altman-Sucksburg
Choo Choo! All aboard! One way trip, no coming back!
Choo Choo! All aboard! One way trip, no coming back!
The evil, soulless ghoul Sam Altman recently appeared on The Tonight Show, where enabling stooge host Jimmy Fallon placed the ball on the tee so the cleanup hitter for the Fuckadelphia Fuckies could knock a home run out of the I-can’t-believe-these-people-are-running-the-world ballpark.
Fallon asked the CEO of OpenAI if he uses ChatGPT when raising his baby. Altman answered the way you could only expect someone who wants to replace humans with robots in the worst ways possible [1] would:
He’s getting thoroughly roasted online, which only makes me want to pile on this noodle-brain even more. So that’s what I’m about to do. I’d like to pick his disingenuous, snake-oil-sales-pitch of a response apart line by line in a way to metaphorically scream into a pillow about the world this man hopes to create. Then, maybe we can all (metaphorically) fill those (metaphorical) pillows up with (metaphorical) bars of soap and (metaphorically) beat him senseless until he goes away forever.2
Fallon: And do you use ChatGPT when raising your baby?
Altman: I do.
What did you expect him to say here, Jimmy? The man is the captain of a sinking ship, but instead of trying to get everybody safely off board, he’s trying to sell more tickets to the cruise!
I don’t feel one tiny bit bad for the man, but Altman has really put himself into a terrible corner, creating a stupid piece of terrible technology that actively harms the people who use it and then having to publically talk about how he uses it all the time. He either makes himself look like an idiot who can’t do anything on his own, or a late-night infomercial “and I’m also a client” clown.
I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. He’s not either/or. He’s both an idiot and a clown.
Altman: I feel kind of bad about it.
You should feel bad about it. But I know that you actually don’t. I can tell this isn’t going to go into any place that even pretends to be self-aware about the horror that you’ve brought into the world.
Altman: Cause, I mean, we have this genius level of everything intelligence sitting there waiting to unravel the mysteries of humanity.
No, you don’t.
You have a theft-machine that takes actual people’s real work and spits out bad reproductions based on prompts given to it by people who think “having an idea” means that they are creative. People who don’t respect art, or work, or skill, or process, or humanity and only want a shortcut to end results.
You have a dangerous technology that weaponizes lonliness against people who turn to it at their most vulnerable for advice. A classic case of technological “worry about could and not should” that I can only hope also ends with the creators getting eaten alive by the beasts of their own making.
Altman: And I’m like “why does my kid stop dropping his pizza on the floor and laughing.”
Here, Altman flubs his own attempt at a punchline. What he obviously meant to say was some line that he rehearsed and workshopped with his “how to look like an actual human person” coach. This was clearly either supposed to be “why won’t my kid stop dropping his pizza on the floor and laughing” or “why does my kid keep dropping his pizza on the floor and laughing.” But he coudn’t even get his “aww shucks, Evil Corporate CEOs are just like you” half-hearted attempt at relatable self-deprecation correct without tripping over himself. They must have workshopped it both ways, and his wires got crossed while trying to decide which one would make him sound less like a Bond villain.
But jokes on him, picking up your phone and asking your computer why your baby does something cute does the opposite of what you thought you were doing. You thought that telling us that you use ChatGPT to Google3 why a baby laughs at dropping pizza on the floor would make you sound down to earth? What it actually tells is us how disconnected you are to your own family that you can’t even be in the moment with your baby to enjoy life as it happens around you.
Look, I’m a new father. I have Googled my fair share of things about my baby. I have looked at plenty of pictures of baby poop on Google images to make sure my baby’s poop looks the way that normal, healthy baby poop is supposed to look. But I didn’t do this while actively changing a diaper! I’ve Googled how often it’s okay for a baby to sneeze, but not while making eye contact with Little Miss Sneezy Sneezerton4 and saying “bless you” in a silly voice that makes her laugh. I’m living in the moment!5
Why does your baby keep dropping pizza on the floor and laughing? Cause it’s fucking funny, you dolt! Instead of running to your phone to ask “why baby cute baby?” try singing a little song about how “more pizza should be floor pizza” and flop a slice down on (what I can only imagine to be) your lifeless-grey-colored tiles and play along!
Altman: So I feel like I’m not asking a good enough question.
You’re right. You should be asking a question to yourself. And that question should be “what the hell have I done?"
Altman: I cannot imagine…having gone through figuring out how to raise a newborn without ChatGPT.
There it is. The line getting all the attention.
You know, ol’ Sam is getting a lot of flack for saying this, but I’m going to cut him a little slack here. Because clearly he is a man who lacks imagination. I’m sure there are a lot of things he cannot imagine.
Altman: Clearly, people did it for a long time. No problem.
I actually think he’s a coward for this. Pointing out that people were able to do anything at all with “no problem” before your “world-changing invention” that you “can’t imagine” being able to do things without came along is something a weak fool and a loser would do.
You gotta go all in at this point, man. You gotta say that all the ancestors were wrong and bad at raising babies in the past and that all babies raised after the invention of ChatGPT will be better for it. Which is it? Are you unraveling the mysteries of humanity or are people able to get by without it since the dawn of humanity no problem? Lean the fuck in, man. If you’re gonna get wet, go fucking swimming, dude. Why back down now? Why show even the smallest bit of humility at this point? Actually, here’s where you can try a bit of that self-deprecation and talk about how shitty your own parents were and how you turned out bad because ChatGPT wasn’t around for your mom and dad to ask what to do when you wouldn’t stop being a weird little freak.
You’re not built for this. Go home to your kid. Have a nice time with your family. Put your phone away. Cut the shit.
Acceptable ways that robots could replace humans: if money were no longer a worry and everybody had all of their needs taken care of and could pursue a life of passion and art, and leisure in whatever way they wished.
Not metaphorically. Go away forever.
That’s what you do with it. You Google stuff. The verb Google still applies.
this is not her government name
Maybe for the first time ever. It’s nice. I suggest trying it if you haven’t.
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A way-too-far deep dive into my favorite lyric in the song 'You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch"
“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” is the greatest diss track ever put down on wax. Move over, “The Bridge is Over”, forget “Hit ‘Em Up”, don’t even think about bringing up “Not Like Us.” They all pale in comparison to the GOAT takedown by Thurl Ravenscroft.
Because if I can't do something like this on my own blog what am I even here for?
“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” is the greatest diss track ever put down on wax. Move over, “The Bridge is Over”, forget “Hit ‘Em Up”, don’t even think about bringing up “Not Like Us.” They all pale in comparison to the GOAT takedown by Thurl Ravenscroft.1 Every line is another dart. Every couplet is a knock-out blow. Every stanza opens with a straightforward declaration and ends in a flourishing crescendo, making you say, “stop it, he’s had enough!” And he does it all in a family-friendly, G-rated way that Tupac could never.2
My favorite line in the beatdown-disguised-as-a-song3 comes in the sixth and final verse, and it stands out to the ear as a flowing composition of consonants and vowels that dance in the ear (and on the tongue, because make no mistake about it, we are singing along with ol’ Thurl in our deepest register) like nothing that has come before it. The line is something that could not exist in the first stanza of the song, because the listener wouldn’t be able to pay attention to anything that came next. We’d fall into a rewind loop of playing it over and over and never get to hear about all the other ways Mr. Grinch is an unpleasant ass. We’d never know about the termites in his smile or the fact that his heart is simultaneously both a dead tomato splotched with moldy purple spots and full of unwashed socks. The line is something that needs to be built toward and prepared for by everything that comes before it.4
Famously, J.R.R. Tolkien (and many others) has spoken about the pleasant, beautiful sound of the phrase “cellar door.” The way the words fit together creates a musical flow that is pleasing to hear and say. In a 1955 lecture, Tolkien said, of the phrase:
“Most English-speaking people ... will admit that cellar door is ‘beautiful’, especially if dissociated from its sense (and from its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent, and moving to the higher dimension, the words in which there is pleasure in the contemplation of the association of form and sense are abundant.”
My version of cellar door is the line “You’re a crooked jerky jockey, and you drive a crooked hoss, Mister Grinch.” Read that again. Not in your head, read it out loud. Don’t sing it5, just speak it. Slow down. Say it again. Now close your eyes and repeat it. Fall into a trance, repeating it until you’re floating on a raft in the ocean, peaceful and serene, riding the waves of the “ooks” “erks” and “ocks” until all your mangled-up, tangled-up knots have evaporated into thin air and disappeared from your previously stress-filled body.
Doesn’t that feel great?
Just like “cellar door,” the phrase needs to be dissociated from its sense in order to appreciate its beauty. Its sense is that Mr. Grinch is a dishonest, foolish, irregular rider of horses and that the horse he rides upon also shares those same disreputable qualities. The man is so toxic that he infects the beasts around him (save for his beautiful-souled dog Max, although he is complicit in the sins of his father) with his vile, obnoxious stink.6 But the words themself are pure poetry. Ravenscroft is Shakespeare, frolicking through a field of contempt, floating in the clouds, and ascending to join the gods of language to drink ambrosia and look down at the earth, made more beautiful because of his lyrical creation.
If Thurl can mix metaphors, then so can I.
I can feel it in my toes as the song approaches this line. When we learn that the singer is nauseated by Mr. Grinch with a “nauseous super naus,” I know the only thing that will calm the storm brewing inside our collective upset bellies is to sing the next line with our full hearts. And I do, each and every time. I am Pavarotti, Domingo, and Carreras combined, belting with my entire soul, shaking the walls of my home (or, frequently, the windows of the car) with a vibrato my high school choir teacher would call “alarming” and “far too much.”
When I come back down, I barely have time to catch my breath before joining in to sing along with the daily special from the twisted mind of our tortured-genius word-chef: three-decker sauerkraut and toadstool sandwich. With arsenic sauce, of course. Sounds delicious. Not to eat, but to hear.
Actually, can I get that sauce on the side, please? This song has provided me with all the sauce that I’ll need for quite a while.7
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What a fucking name, am I right? Who named this dude, Thomas Pynchon?
He probably could, but let me cook for a minute, okay?
And possibly my favorite lyric in any song ever I’m not even kidding for comedic effect.
Both in the song and, obviously, in this essay. Yes, this in an “essay” and not a “goof-around.”
I know you sang it.
…stank…stunk.
Also, there’s arsenic in that sauce! No, thank you!
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Have You Heard about this so-called "Millennial Optimism Era?"
Apparently, Gen-Z is jealous of the times we had in the early 2010s...
Apparently, Gen-Z is jealous of the times we had in the early 2010s...
Apparently (according to a post fed to me on Instagram), there is a growing romanticization of the early 2010s among members of Gen Z who feel like they missed out on being adults in an era when Obama was in office, The Office was brand new every Thursday on NBC, and hipster-indie aesthetic dominated the culture.
As a 41-year-old man, I have to say that I did have a lot of fun during this specific era, but I don’t know how much “optimism” had to do with it. Yes, there was a time when we were all trapped in a “Yes We Can, Change We Can Believe In” fever dream for a minute, but the reason why we got caught up in that was that we needed change, we needed to hear that we could do…anything at all. Because shit was bleak.
Of course, shit is bleak now, in a very different way. I certainly don’t envy young adults who are forced to have their salad days during a time of doomscrolling and fascism.1 Each generation of youth rebels against the dominant vibes of the era in its own specific way. I literally stopped writing a piece about sad-ass Millennial nostalgia2 to react to learning about “Millennial Optimism Era.” The ‘90s were a time of American Economic prosperity (propped up on a house of cards of deregulation that we continue to be buried by its collapse today, but still), and the youth of the day rebelled with angst-filled grunge. Millennials in the late 2000s/early 2010s were reacting to post 9/11, Bush-era America, Patriot-Act Politics, and an economic collapse just as we were exiting college and entering the job market. Maybe everything is different when viewed from outside3, but my “fun-times” in the “era of Millennial Optimism” were kind of specifically tied to a decision to lean into the fact that everything was fucked. I didn’t drink Nyquil every single night for a while because of “optimism,” I’ll tell you that.
What I think might be actually happening here is that Gen Z is having nostalgic feelings for a time of their own youth, when they did not have any adult responsibilities. Then, when they are hit with early-2010s-core music, style, fashion, or design, it activates their longing for a time they remember as good (because, again, no adult responsibilities) and then they wish they were adults with more “freedom” during this time in history (but again, then they’d have adult responsibilities!) I don’t blame them; it’s a trick we all kind of play on ourselves at times.
I graduated from college in 2007, got my first “full-time” job in 20084, and got “laid off”5 in the summer of 2009, after which I was unemployed for approximately three full years. Thankfully, there was an unemployment extension safety-net that provided me with about $300/week in benefits for a period of over two years6. What’s fucked up is that the job market was so screwed at the time, it literally didn’t make sense to pursue a $10/hour job that would make me the same amount of money as not having a job would give me (so I did a ton of comedy and lost a ton of weight; thanks, Obama, for real.)
With the benefit of hindsight, I can probably say that our “fuck it, at least things under Obama are better than they were under Bush” approach to life probably wasn’t the best. The “everything is hunky dory” neoliberal-ignorance politics of the day, directly leading to Hillary Clinton’s “America is already great” approach to the 2016 election really turned a blind eye to a lot of the dread a lot of people felt deep down in their souls. And now we’re paying the price for all of that, and Gen Z is looking at it with envy. But I’m not going to wade too far into those waters because I’d be out of my depth.
What I will do is continue to tread water in a territory in which I can say that maybe, yeah, in a lot of ways things were better for Millennials in our early 20s than things are for Gen Zers now. And Millennials can look at Gen Xers of the early ‘90s and be jealous that they had freedoms we didn’t have. And we can all look at Boomers who paid nothing for college and hummed a little tune to buy their first home and say “fuck you!” And then we can collectively come to our senses and say “what did they do to us” and instead of looking back at previous generations with anger that they had it slightly better than us in some ways we can look ahead and figure out how to make things better going forward for everybody.7
How’s that for some actual Millennial optimism?
Did I bury the fascism? I did not mean to bury the fascism.
Which I will return to and post in the future at a time that is not too close in proximity to this piece, as to avoid being perceived as some kind of “Millennial blogger.”
And maybe this points to a bigger issue where things for people in America have been getting worse and worse for each generation - oh no!
I worked 40 hours/week, but I put “full-time” in quotes because I worked as a salesperson in a cell phone store. My employment had no relation to the fact that I graduated from college.
Is it considered “laid off” if they let you go from your cell phone salesperson job because you are bad at selling cell phones?
And my rent was a very-affordable $500 per month.
How? HA! I DON’T KNOW EXACTLY (but it probably starts with eliminating the billionaire class that controlls every aspect of our society).
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The Greatest Sandwich Ever Created: the Chicken Finger Supreme Hoagie
Sometimes I miss this sandwich so much it hurts.
Sometimes I miss this sandwich so much it hurts.
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I took a year off between high school and college. I didn’t originally plan on taking a gap year; it happened because I was an idiot. But sometimes things work out for the best, even when they start in a place of stupidity. Which is good for me, because I’m very stupid.
It started because I had no real plans for my future, so I applied to one school and one school only: Penn State, and was accepted into their Engineering Department. I clapped my hands, wiped them on my pants, and figured that was that. Engineering was a respectable profession, and Penn State had a good Engineering program. Did I actually want to be an Engineer? How the hell did I know? I was a child at the time. What I did know was that it sounded good to tell people, “I’m going to Penn State and I’m going to be an Engineer.”
But then I had to take calculus in high school, and I could not understand what the fuck was going on. It was the first time I was stumped by something at school. It actually (and I’m aware this sounds really bad) taught me a lesson in empathy because I used to look at kids who were bad at school and think “what is wrong with you, this shit is so easy.” School had always been a breeze. It was a breeze afterward as well. I just could not, for the life of me, understand calculus. I tried, for about half the year, and then I gave up. I didn’t care anymore, I threw in the towel. The timing of my tap-out led to a hilarious exchange in which my calculus teacher (a man I very much like) accused me in front of the entire class of quitting on math because he believed I thought I was “too cool after my performance in the school play.” This is an accusation I can all but guarantee has never been thrown at anyone before or after this day. Sorry, Mr. Maines, I didn’t think I was “too cool” because of my turn as Sir Harry in Once Upon a Mattress; I just sucked at calculus and decided to lean into the Senioritis. I figured I’d also need to find a new plan for college because I didn’t think you could be an Engineer if you didn’t understand calculus.1 But Penn State was a huge school with a lot of options, so I figured I’d find out what I wanted to do when I got there.
Then I actually got there, and it sucked. Look, maybe you went to Penn State and you loved it. Great for you. I did not. For those of you who don’t know, Penn State is a huge college town surrounded by a bunch of farm land and a whole lot of nothing much else. That’s great for some people, but it reminded me too much of my hometown. A place full of people who loved the football team and drinking and…I don’t even know what else. Should I have maybe visited the school one time before deciding to go there? Would that have clued me into the fact that maybe it wasn’t my cup of tea? Yeah, probably, but like I said, I’m very stupid.
So I went home, where my best friend from high school was waiting, because he also got to the college he planned on attending, looked around, said “nope,” and went back home.2 I get that going home to get away from a place I didn’t like because it reminded me of home seemes a bit strange. But again, I am very stupid.
Which all led to one of the greatest, most fun, dumbest (in the best way) years of my entire life. I won’t go into all the details, but it was a much-needed break for me to figure some stuff out. I was always just concerned about being “good at school” and never really thought about where that would lead or what I actually wanted. Finding out that Penn State was not the place for me and that I didn’t have to stick around in something that wasn’t right for me was big in my development into an adult. Even though it basically led to a year of fucking around and hanging out with my friends.
My mom was concerned, at first. There was a lot of talk about “wasting my potential” or whatever parents say to their kids in situations like this. But then I visited Temple in Philly3, and found the school that felt right for me. She knew I didn’t plan on staying home forever and working at the mall, where I got a job in an Antique store for the year.4 After that things were pretty chill at home, and I didn’t feel bad about fucking off with my friends when I wasn’t at work. I had a plan for the future, and could lean into just enjoying the now.5
So what the hell does any of this have to do with a sandwich?
Well, like I said, much of that year was spent hanging out with my best friend from high school, and a handful of other friends who all went to college near home (or were still in high school.) Many of them lived at home and commuted to school. Others went to Bloomsburg University, a school that, even at her most concerned about my future, my mother forbade me to apply to because it was so close to home it was basically the same as never leaving at all. There was a rumor at our high school that there was some kind of deal with Bloom that if you graduated, you automatically got accepted. It was a real “13th grade” kind of place and I’m glad my mom wouldn’t let me go there, even as a placeholder school for a semester or two.
So we hung out at Bloom, or at one of my friends’ places, and ultimately ended up ordering a lot of food. Like, a ton of food. In both frequency and in volume, it was stupid amounts of food. One of our go-to spots was a place called Crawford’s Bullpen, a place that, until that year, I knew as a small food stand and convenience store near the Little League baseball field where you could grab sunflower seeds, or Big League Chew, or shredded beef jerky in a tin made to look like it was a pack of Skoal. Basically, anything for ball-playing kids to emulate the tobacco-chewing Major League Baseball icons of our youth, and chomp on and spit out these gateway snacks to mouth cancer.
They also had delicious pizza and soft pretzels that were unlike any other pretzels or pizza I’ve ever had. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve eaten them, so I apologize for not knowing how exactly to describe them. The pretzels were close to an Amish-style soft pretzel. They were very light in color, crispy on the outside, soft and bready on the inside, a little bit buttery, and super salty. Not as soaked in butter and golden-brown as an Auntie Anne’s (or Wetzel’s) pretzel, but closer to that than a Philly-style soft pretzel. A search for “Amish soft pretzels” brought me a lot of close-but-no-cigar results, the closest in looks coming from this random Instagram reel (which seems to go really hard on the butter - these pretzels did not seem that buttery.)
The pizza was something they called “Pinky’s style,” which, I think, just meant the sauce was on top of the cheese. The sauce was super deep and rich in flavor, like it used a lot of tomato paste, or was cooked down for a long time, which usually isn’t great for pizza, but it paired perfectly with the creamy cheese blend they used. The crust was thicker and more bready than your typical New York pizza slice, and might have been something close to the pretzel dough, but I’m not sure. There were certainly better options in town for a “classic” pizza, but there was something special about Crawford’s pizza that kept us coming back.
But what really kept us coming back was the Chicken Finger Supreme Hoagie.6 A simple, but unforgettable sandwich consisting of chicken fingers on a hoagie roll with the most delicious secret sauce. This sauce, like the pretzels and pizza, was some kind of custom hybrid recipe that I’ve never experienced anywhere else. What was the sauce? If I knew, I’d probably be dead because I would make it and eat nothing but homemade, bootleg chicken finger supreme hoagies every day until I passed away from happiness7. It was tangy, and sweet, and zippy, and if I had to guess, it was probably equal parts honey mustard and buffalo sauce. I’m just putting that together now, today, 20 years later as I write this. This guy Crawford probably just mixed honey mustard and buffalo sauce (and maybe some BBQ sauce too?) and slapped it on a sandwich, and I’ve been chasing it like it’s the holy grail ever since.
We’d typically order from Crawford’s on Sundays, after playing what we called “Arena Football” all day long. My friends and I were more into basketball than football, but in the winter, we’d play touch football on shoveled-off basketball courts with a few special twists to the rules.8 After the weekly games, we’d head back to my best friend’s house, where we’d order more food than you’d ever believe, and eat until we passed out. We were a handful of 19 to 20-year-old guys, stinking to high hell from playing football all day, bellies full of chicken fingers and pizza and fries and wings and who knows what else, faces full of sauce, passed out on couches and floors while NASCAR played on TV. I’ve never been a NASCAR fan, but it ranks up there with baseball and golf for having on the TV while you’re deep in a Sunday afternoon nap.
The sandwich no longer exists, and I still remember the call to The Bullpen (no longer Crawford’s Bullpen) where I tried to order the Chicken Finger Supreme Hoagie and the person who answered the phone had no idea what the fuck I was talking about. They asked me to explain the hoagie, and told me the establishment recently came under new ownership. I just hung up the phone, defeated, not knowing how to properly explain the magic that had been removed from my life forever. I guess it’s true when they say you can’t go home again. A friend of mine, who was related to Mr. Crawford, later told me that he had a stock supply of the special sauce in his refrigerator and I have never before or after as seriously considered a home invasion and robbery as I did in that moment.
When people9 get all philosophical and sentimental about food, they like to talk about how it connects us to our past, reminds us of simpler times in our youth, or comforts us by reminding us of home. The memory of the Chicken Finger Supreme Hoagie connects me to this very special, very strange time in my life where I floated around with friends, had almost no responsibility whatsoever, and strenghtened bonds of friendship that last to this day. When I say I miss that sandwich so much it hurts what I really mean is I miss those times with those people and cherish the dumbass shit we did together.
Sure, some people use their gap year to backpack through Europe and see the world, I chose to stay in the Coal Region of Central Pennsylvania and fuck around like a high school kid who didn’t have to care about school, or much of anything at all, for a whole entire year. Would riding trains from city to city, reading the classics, and visiting museums and culturally and histoically important places have been more intelluctually stimulating? Probably, but that’s not what I needed at that point in my life. I needed to shake off the stink of feeling stupid because I didn’t understand calculus, and realize that it didn’t matter. I needed to figure out who I was outside of school. I needed to take a fake football league way too seriously. I needed to watch Super Troopers approximately 279 times. I needed fried chicken on a hoagie roll with a secret sauce that was probably just a bunch of other sauces mixed together, and my best friends from home.
I didn’t know if this was actually true. I still don’t know if it’s actually true. Maybe I could have been an Engineer.
Obviously, knowing he did this made it much easier for me to pull the plug on Penn State.
Thank you so much to the multiple friends from my high school graduating class who each reached out to me and said “I heard you left Penn State, come check out Temple, we think you’ll love it.”
Something that never really entered my mind, but I can totally see why it would have been a concern for her. Working in an antique store at the mall was rad though. It was quiet. I helped people move heavy furniture about once or twice per day, but mostly just sat at the register and read books.
Imagine the concept!
Finally, Aaron. Holy shit, it took you long enough to get here.
That’s the official cause of death when you die by gluttony, right?
For example, if you threw it into the hoop on a kickoff, the game was over, your team won. This was referred to as “A Gamer.” I think we also played games basketball-style, where the first to score X-number of TDs won, but you had to win by 2. So you had to get a stop and score, or if the game was tied, it went into a college football-style overtime. You were also allowed to set picks on passing routes, which is where I, a big man who did not run fast, thrived. It was a lot of fun, and we took it very seriously. There was a website where we posted player stats and bios. There was a system for giving out seasonal awards that was partly based on league-wide voting and partly based on a statistical formula created by the league’s “commissioner.” The league had a commissioner. The season kicked off on Thanksgiving weekend and ran through spring, capping off with the Arena Bowl championship tournament.
Or the movie Ratatouille
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So, You Just Asked a Body Transformation Guy for Weight Loss Advice
Get ready to hear some "hard truths", "no-nonsense advice", and a whole lot of bullshit.
Get ready to hear some "hard truths", "no-nonsense advice", and a whole lot of bullshit.
Of course, I’d be more than happy to share how I lost over 200 pounds and completely turned my life around with you. First things first, I have to say that anything I tell you is only what worked for me. I have no clue whatsoever if what worked for me will work for you. Everybody is different. And every body is different.
I actually have a patent on “Everybody is different and every body is different” so you can’t use that in a sentence or put it on a shirt or a hat or anything ever without my express written consent. As far as you’re concerned, that phrase is a video highlight of a 90-yard touchdown pass to win the Super Bowl, and I am the National Football League. I will sue your size 48 waist pants off if you even think about putting that on a shirt or a hat. Note to self: put the catchphrase on pants, too, maybe across the butt, people love pants with stuff on the butts.
Next things next, I have to make sure you didn’t come here for some kind of weight loss shortcut. Because if you expect me to say, “I only eat hoagies now,” or “I stopped drinking Kool Aid and the weight just fell off” you are sorely mistaken.. Trust me, if it were that easy, I’d be on television right now holding up a big pair of pants with a dumbass grin above my chisled jawline, collecting a check to tell people that I lost weight by switching from Papa John’s to Domino’s. It doesn’t work like that. I mean, maybe for some people, but not for me. But again every body is different™. So maybe you can actually do the Domino’s thing. You can try it if you want, but I don’t think it will work. But what do I know? I’m just a guy who lost over 200 pounds and completely changed my life.
Right now, you probably have a terrible relationship with food. I know that because you came to me and said, “I’d like to change my relationship with food.” If you use the word “relationship” to refer to how you eat food, then that relationship is abusive. What is a chicken parm sandwich your boyfriend? Do you say things like “I know I should be with Salad. Salad treats me better and makes me feel good about myself. But Salad just can’t fill me up the same way as Chicken Parm Sandwich can.” Eww. Gross. What is wrong with you? Food isn’t a pleasure trip to fucktown. Food is fuel for your body.
That’s right. Food is fuel. So start drinking gasoline.
Just kidding. I’m not really telling you to drink gasoline. Unless you start drinking gasoline and you start losing weight and you don’t die, and you want to keep doing that. I can’t legally tell you to drink gasoline to lose weight. And I’m not telling you to do that. But food is fuel. And gasoline is fuel. So who knows? Who is to say? They are both fuels. That’s pretty interesting, at least to think about. Remember, I’m not telling you to drink gasoline as food. You have to remember that. But I’m not telling you not to drink gasoline.
Okay, so what worked for me? Well, I woke up every day, I looked myself in the eye in the mirror and I said “you’re worth it.” Which was a lie. I wasn’t worth it, but I thought that maybe one day I could be worth it. Because I hated myself. Do I hate myself now? No. I hate you. Because you’re like I used to be. You remind me of me before, and that’s bad. I’m going for a three-mile run as soon as we’re done here because you just made me think of me from a few years ago. There’s nothing I hate more than being reminded of who I used to be.
Do I go to therapy? I guess, in a way, I do go to therapy. Three-mile runs are my therapy and three-mile runs don’t cost me a dime, except for how fast I burn through running shoes. My running shoe budget is honestly nutso. I have to buy a new pair almost every month. That’s so many shoes. Maybe buying shoes is also my therapy? But no, I don’t talk about my feelings to anybody. Why do you ask?
But you can’t outrun a bad diet. That’s a cliche that is also true. No matter how far you run away from yourself, you’ll still find the same old you if you don’t change the way you eat. This is my final actual piece of advice for what worked for me. I did an eating disorder.
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The Night(mare) before my Wedding
"Some day this will be a funny story." - My Wife (while crying)
"Some day this will be a funny story." - My Wife (while crying)
On the night before our wedding, my then-fiancé and I lay awake, unable to fall asleep. Our restlessness didn’t come from excitement, however unromantic that may seem. But that wasn’t our fault, I swear. We didn’t have the chance to feel like kids on Christmas Eve about our rapidly approaching wedding. We couldn’t sleep because of a looming sense of dread.
That also, thankfully, was not about our upcoming marriage. It was about our safety.
Eventually, we made a decision; we had to get up and leave. It was the middle of the night on the eve of our wedding, and we had to get the hell out of our Airbnb.
Because somebody had been there when we were gone.
And they left evidence in the toilet.
Now that I have your attention, let me back things up a bit. What is this, the cold open of a prestige drama television show from the last five years? Seriously, why do shows all start like that now? Every single one starts with a flash forward. Please, stop that. Did I start this article with a flash forward just so I could complain about television shows doing it? Perhaps. But, I digress.
Our wedding was an extremely DIY affair. We live in Los Angeles. My family is in Central Pennsylvania. Her family is in Illinois. We wanted to do something to get both of our families in the same place at the same time for what would be the first and most likely only time, possibly ever. An extremely generous gift from my Father-in-Law made throwing an actual wedding possible instead of just making our families fly across the country to watch us get married in a courthouse and then going out to lunch. That meant we had to plan things on a super-tight budget and do a lot of work ourselves.
We wanted our wedding to be nice, but not break what I will laughingly refer to as “the bank.” When I say “we” wanted it to be nice, I mean that my suggestion of “let’s just rent out a basketball court at a rec center and throw a pizza party” was immediately shot down, decapitated, lit on fire, and buried, with the earth in which it lay salted so that nothing could grow from its remains. Which is more than fair. It would have been rude to ask our families to travel all that way for what would have been the equivalent of two full-grown adults throwing a party fit for an 8-year-old’s birthday.
We basically took on a second job as event planners for the year. We found a beautiful, surprisingly affordable (especially for Los Angeles) venue in Topanga Canyon that also provided the catering. We bought a few cases of wine. Our friend who works as a brewer gave us beer he made personally. We made playlists for the music throughout the evening, expertly curated to fit the moods of the pre-ceremony arrival, cocktail hour, dinner music, early-evening dancing, and late-night (probably drunk) dancing. We bought flowers in downtown LA1 and arranged them (again, with some help from friends). We found a nearby hotel to make things easy for our family (many of whom do not travel often and needed help to plan their trips).
The fact that most of our family members would be staying in the same hotel meant that we did not want to stay in the same place for the weekend of our wedding. Nothing against our families, we just didn’t want to be that accessible to them for the entire wedding weekend. Some quiet time to ourselves would probably be nice. So we found what looked to be a cozy, peaceful, quiet mountain home in Topanga on Airbnb and planned our stay. Our problems came because the place was a little too quiet and a little too mountainy for our own good.
Our DIY Wedding included a whole bunch of running around doing errands on the day before the big day. We had to pick up our wedding cake and make sure that our refrigerator had enough room to hold a confection meant to feed 50 people. We also had to pick up the linens from the linen rental place. I didn’t even know there were places to rent linens. I never thought about renting linens before. I never really thought about linens before. But there’s a place in Burbank where you can pull up your car and then load it full of what seems like a thousand pounds of tablecloths, napkins, things that are apparently called “runners”, and other cumbersome cloth items we’d need to return as soon as possible after the event or face dire consequences.2
Once our car was packed to the brim with linens, cake, clothes, flowers, vases, and other necessary items for our DIY-Wedding3, we were ready to drive to our Airbnb at the top of a mountain in Topanga, where we would unload our car and then get ready to gather with our families at a restaurant so they could all meet each other for the very first time so the pre-wedding mingling would be less awkward for everybody. The only problem was…my fiancé’s 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid4 didn’t exactly have the juice needed to make the ultimate climb up said mountain while packed to the gills with all of this shit. We never had a problem climbing a hill before, but our car was never loaded up like this before, either. I made the incredibly genius decision to start carrying stuff up the hill (in 90-plus-degree October weather) to our rental in order to lighten the burden for our poor little Honda. But no matter how many trips I made up that hill, the car kept getting stuck. Surely, carrying a thousand pounds of linen would do the trick. Nope. How about carrying a wedding cake up a steep, dusty hill, hoping not to trip or slip or do a hilarious pratfall on top of our beautiful, custom-made, locally sourced cake? I made it safely, but it didn’t help the car climb any higher. Maybe I could help the car with a little push? We’ll never know because again, My Beloved shut down my idea because she “didn’t want me to get squished to death by a car rolling backwards down a hill on top of me on the day before we got married.”5 The neighbor at the bottom of the hill came out of their house to ask what the fuck we were doing. They seemed thrilled that the house above them was being used for a short-term rental property for people who can’t afford to own a car that could climb the damn hill, but what could they do about it?6
We also made the very stupid decision to contact our Airbnb host to ask if anybody else had ever had trouble getting up the hill and where we should park our car, since we kept landing just short of our destination. Of course, they told us nobody else ever had an issue climbing the hill and suggested that, perhaps, we needed to get our car serviced.7 We didn’t know this decision was stupid at the time, we’d only find out later when we needed to get in touch with them again.
We finally got all of our stuff into the Airbnb with just enough time to need to rush to get ready for the rest of our evening activities. We were expected at the venue soon for a quick rehearsal and to drop off some stuff that could be left there overnight. Then we had to meet our families. We desperately needed to shower and change our clothes first.
It was during this period of getting ready that we started to notice that some things were off about our rental. First, we accessed the cabin with a lock-code, and upon entering, we were supposed to find a key in a dish on the kitchen table. There was no key to be found anywhere. As we looked around the cozy cabin on top of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, we also discovered that one of the sliding back doors was left unlocked. Things were starting to seem like the setup of a classic horror movie when, in a classic case of “the rule of three", my soon-to-be wife discovered the final, and strangest thing of all.
The pièce de résistance.
The shit that was left in the toilet.
That’s right. The toilet, which neither of us had used, was full. Of shit. While this was definitely weird,8 we were in such a hurry that we clocked it as strange and went about taking showers and getting ready. We flushed it first, you weirdo, why’d I even have to clarify that?
As we left the Airbnb, we decided to reach out to our host again to let them know about the missing key and ask them if a cleaning person, or landscaper, or anyone else could have possibly been there before us. That would make sense. Someone was there and forgot to flush. I don’t think we mentioned the poop. We just said that the key was missing and could tell that “someone had used the restroom before we were there.” That was a nice, polite way to put things. They apparently operate on a “one strike and I don’t trust you anymore” rule because we were left on read, waiting for an answer.
We had our quick rehearsal at the venue and then set off to meet our family at the restaurant for some introductions and drinks, and snacks…but the restaurant was closed. There was a power outage, and they didn’t know when things would be back up and running. We stood outside on the corner like a bunch of fools while family members continued to arrive at an obviously closed bar. Eventually, we found a new place, sent a series of text messages, and hoped that everyone involved would find the new venue. A hiccup like the restaurant you planned to have your pre-wedding celebration at being randomly closed would be the biggest turd in the punchbowl for a lot of wedding stories, but unlucky for us, our biggest turd was a turd.
We had a great time with our families. A very helpful friend agreed to swap cars with us for the night so that we could climb the hill and actually park at our Airbnb. Then we heard back from our host.
They said that they checked with all their people, and they all said they hadn’t been in the cabin.
This means that either they were not telling the truth and had been there and forgot to flush the evidence (which in this case would be preferred) or that they were telling the truth, and some unknown party had left a shit in our Airbnb. We messaged the host with the full story,9 but at this point, it was well past 10 pm, and the hope of getting an answer was slim.10 We were a full-on nuisance to them at this point. How dare we be inconvenienced by a mystery toilet log. When we got back to the unit, we discovered another door that was left unlocked, and at this point, we both felt very nervous about the prospect of spending the night in this cabin that was relatively remote yet surprisingly easy to get into by some unknown stranger or entity.
“This has horror movie vibes,” I told my fiance.
“Yeah, leaving a shit in a toilet is definitely the type of power move someone would do before coming back later to murder them,” said my wife, an avid consumer of true-crime documentaries, podcasts, books, and general lore. The threatening poop, plus the missing key and unlocked doors, filled us with a sense of dread we just couldn’t shake.
My first genius idea was to block the doors with tables and chairs. I moved any and all furniture into a place where it would block any hole that could potentially give entry and access to our vulnerable bodies to a human murderer or supernatural monster-beast-of-the-forest. That lasted all of about 10 minutes until we felt uneasy again. Which brings us back to the little opening teaser again. To remind you:
We had to get up and leave. It was the middle of the night on the eve of our wedding, and we had to get the hell out of our Airbnb.
Remember, we had a ton of shit11 to pack, including a big-ass god damn wedding cake that needed to be refrigerated. We also didn’t have cell service - only adding to the creepy feeling of isolation that came with our mountain lodge. We had to leave and blindly hope that we could find a place to stay and a place to keep a cake once we were far enough away from the murder cabin in the woods to once again get reception. And it was now like 1 am, or even later, I think, I can’t fully remember for sure how late it was. Luckily, my sister is an insomniac and answered her phone when we called her, and their house rental had a refrigerator that could fit an entire wedding cake. That took care of that. Now we just needed to find a hotel.
A handful of calls to fully booked hotels (including the one housing most of our families that we had previously tried to avoid) made it look like we’d be crashing in a borrowed car in the parking lot of our venue like a couple of drifters. At least we’d have all those linens to use as blankets. We were technically a little less than an hour from home, but we had given our place to out-of-town family for the weekend, and we live by a strict “no take-backs” policy when doing favors for loved ones. Finally, we were able to find an opening, about a half-hour’s drive away. Coincidentally, our backup hotel option was right across the street from our backup pre-wedding family meet-up restaurant option. I wondered if I should search for a backup wedding venue option somewhere nearby as well, because obviously, our venue would be taken over by wolves in the night. Maybe we could just have the ceremony in the middle of the goddamned road.
We settled into our room for the rest of the night and were finally able to breathe, sometime around 3 am. We were not, unfortunately, able to get any sleep. Too much had happened, and we had to wake up too early to start getting our venue (and then ourselves) ready for the wedding to risk falling asleep now. We had to pull an all-nighter. We put on Friends for some comfort television, and just kind of zoned out for a while.
Luckily, the day of our wedding went off without a hitch.
Just kidding! Our ceremony started late because an attendee we could not start without needed to treat a newly found case of headlice. I think I need to repeat that. Lice! Somebody (who will remain nameless) had to delouse themselves before they came to our wedding! Our wedding officiant forgot that they became an ordained minister online and wrote “none” in the “Religion” section when signing our marriage license by mistake, officially rendering our first attempt at legalizing our union invalid. And I’m pretty sure I had COVID all day (or I contracted it at the wedding, along with a handful of other attendees - a risk we knew we were taking in 2023, which is why we planned that our honeymoon to Italy would not begin for another two weeks - smart on us.)
To wrap it all up, our Airbnb host was very skeptical of our “claim”12 that somebody was in the cabin when we were gone. They thought we were so mad about the fact that our very old (but very reliable) car could not climb the hill that we made up the shit story in order to get a refund. They were mad that we used the shower and temporarily used a bed before we decided to leave out of fear for our own lives. They asked if we took a picture of the offending turd.
Let me say that again.
They asked us if we had photographic evidence that somebody had left a shit in the toilet.
Let’s just say we did. Let’s, for the sake of argument, say that we took a picture of the shit that a stranger left in the toilet of our Airbnb before we checked in, most likely as a power move before returning to murder us in the night. How in the hell would you know that it was a pre-check-in deuce? How would you know it wasn’t ours? What if we sent you a picture of the big ol’ shit? Did they plan on examining it? How would you use this as evidence for or against our claim?
Was this their own poop? I’m just now, two years later, concluding that this was the host’s poop. They did the power-poop move. They’re some kind of poop weirdo. They wanted us to experience their poop, and then claim victim when we ask for a poop-related refund.13 And probably try to get us in trouble for sending them a picture of what was definitely their own poop to begin with. Smooth move, host, smooth move.
Fast forward again, two years. We got over COVID14. We had a fantastic honeymoon in Italy. We are officially, legally married thanks to some corrections in our paperwork. We have a brand new baby daughter who is the best person in the entire world. Our Honda Civic Hybrid has not failed to climb a single hill since the cursed Topanga Canyon dirt road to hell. We haven’t used Airbnb since. We didn’t get murdered. And we have a pretty funny story to tell.
While I’m here, let me say “fuck ICE”
The dire consequences in this case would be monetary penalties. Remember, we were on a shoestring budget.
I haven’t even mentioned until now that my wife MADE HER OWN WEDDING DRESS. While clothing design is her chosen trade (and she is very skilled at it) we really took the DIY to extremes in our DIY Wedding.
Soon to be our 2008 Honda Civic Hybrid, that’s how marriage works, baby!
No word about how she may feel about this happening now, after we are married.
Shut the hell up and mind their own damn business is what.
It was just as rude as it sounds.
And, as only my wife can testify to, because I did not see it, also gross.
Which was “by ‘someone used the bathroom’ we meant ‘someone left a huge shit in the toilet.’”
Unlike the enormous shit left in the toilet by a mystery party.
I should probably say “we had a ton of stuff to pack,” the offending “shit” was long gone.
The quotes are theirs; I assure you I am telling the truth. Their skepticism was made clear in their review of us on Airbnb, which we didn't have time to provide our own in return because we were GETTING MARRIED, then SICK WITH COVID, then ON OUR HONEYMOON IN ITALY.
We got it all back, except the cleaning fee. Because we used the shower and the beds. If any of you plan on renting a cabin in Topanga Canyon, please check with me first, and I will steer you away from this house of horror.
I think. Who knows what the long-term effects will be.
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The So-Called "Angel of Death Cat" Would Like to Explain Himself
Oh, come on, man. Stop for a second. You don't need to run away from me. It doesn't work like that. I don't bring death with me everywhere I go, I promise. I sense death, and then I go towards it, but not everything that I go towards is going to die imminently. Correlation does not equal causality, and all that.
“The one downfall of my chosen career path is that people tend to avoid me…”
Oh, come on, man. Stop for a second. You don't need to run away from me. It doesn't work like that. I don't bring death with me everywhere I go, I promise. I sense death, and then I go towards it, but not everything that I go towards is going to die imminently. Correlation does not equal causality, and all that.
I understand that it might be confusing and, yes, a bit scary. But it's not all that hard to tell the difference. To start, are you a patient in a nursing home who has been feeling a little worse for wear lately? If you answered "no," then you're most of the way in the clear. Honestly, that's where, like, 99 percent of my death-predicting work is accomplished. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but it kind of seems like less of a special skill and more like something that anybody could accomplish if they just tried a little bit. Roam the halls, listen for coughs that are a little more rattly, notice some moans that are extra moany, odds are their next nap will probably be The Big Nap.
So why do I do what I do? There are a lot of theories, ranging from the idea that I want to provide comfort to those who would otherwise be alone at the end of it all, to the speculation that I got really into The Dark Knight, specifically the quote from Heath Ledger's Joker about people showing you who they truly are in their final moments. None of those theories are true, including The Joker's. I've seen plenty of people at the end, and let me tell you, a lot of them are not their true selves. One guy wouldn't stop doing an impression of George W. Bush, but it was really an impression of Will Ferrell's impression of George W. Bush, which then slipped into saying Ron Burgundy quotes as Will Ferrell as George W. Bush. His final words were, "It's so damn hot. Milk was a bad choice," with a Texas drawl and squinchy face.
In all actuality, I do what I do because nobody else was doing it. Simple as that. There's no passion behind it. I just saw an opening and I took it. Like how some people run businesses that provide portable toilets to construction sites and outdoor events. Do you think that's their passion? I sure as hell hope not. They just saw a need and decided to fill it, and now they make a pretty good living. Even better for them, their passion remains their passion, and not a source of career stress. The whole "do what you love and you'll never work a day in your life" crowd has it backwards. I tried doing what I loved for a while. I tried to be a professional yarn-frolicker. I couldn't sleep at night. Kept me up wondering if I'd ever be good enough to make it to The Show. I was filled with a jealous rage at more successful cats who, in my opinion, were less talented than I but just knew how to play the game better. Then I saw a guy setting up portable toilets on the street the day before a parade. He looked happy. I thought to myself, Wow, I bet he doesn't stay awake at night wondering why Johnny on the Spot got the contract to provide commodes to the new construction site downtown, even though Johnny on the Spot is a portable toilet hack. He just tends to portable toilets and then goes home at night to a nice meal. Hopefully, he will wash his hands in between.
The one downfall of my chosen career path is that people tend to avoid me, and unlike the stink that comes with being a portable toilet man, it’s impossible to shower off the stink of being a harbinger of death. Once the nursing home doxxed me just to get a little bit of clout from that god damned human interest piece, people on the street started running away from me, just as you tried to do. I do appreciate you stopping to hear me out. If you could help spread the word that most of the time, I’m just a friendly little guy looking for scritches and a sing-song “Hello to you Mr. Cat” greeting, and not a black-cloaked omen of doom, you'd really be doing me a solid.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret before we part ways. I smell death right now. It’s coming from that group over there, having a great time at the outdoor cafe, blissfully unaware of the fate about to befall a member of their friend group. I could go over and alert the unfortunate soul of their imminent demise, but I’m off the clock right now. And one thing I did learn from Heath Ledger as the Joker is that if you’re good at something, never do it for free.
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I can't go to Sweetgreen with you because I can't cheat on my wife
My partner and I make our own rules. And we draw the line at fast caszh.
My partner and I make our own rules. And we draw the line at fast caszh.
Hey team, I really appreciate your daily invitations to have lunch with you all at Sweetgreen, as well as your dedication to eating healthy, fresh mid-day meals every single ding-dang day. At this point, you must be wondering why I have never taken you up on your offer, and I just want to explain myself before things get too weird.
I can’t go to Sweetgreen with you because I can’t cheat on my wife.
No, there’s nothing about their miso-glazed salmon that turns me into an uncontrollably horny monster. The taste combination of spicy broccoli and spicy cashew dressing is not the double-spice full moon that triggers a metamorphosis into a cartoon wolf, howling at the sky and pounding my fists on the table because I can’t stand the pain of my uncontrollable erection.
I’d like to clarify that I said all that stuff does not happen because you are my coworkers, and I want to keep this conversation work-appropriate. With that said, we can get back to my explanation.
You see, all relationships have rules, even if you don’t realize it. For example, “please don’t have sex with anyone else but me, or I will be sad” is a rule that many relationships have, even if it is a rule that goes unspoken. My wife and I believe that we are grown adults who can define the rules of our own relationship and speak them out loud. We even keep them written down and displayed on our Relationship Constitution that hangs in our bedroom and can be amended at any time with a unanimous vote. We do not believe that the spoken and written rules of our relationship need to be in line with the unspoken rules that society has placed on relationships, seemingly by default. For example, the “don’t have sex with other people” rule is not one that we have in our relationship. We can have sex with anybody that we want. We don’t believe in ownership over each other’s bodies. Aren’t we cool and enlightened?
One of the rules that we do have in our relationship is “do not go to Sweetgreen without me, or you are a liar and a cheat,” and that is a rule that I do not intend to break. Sweetgreen is a sacred place for us. It’s where we went on our third date, which, as we all know, is the most important date. For many people, the third date is the sex date, when they have sex for the first time. We had sex before we even started dating each other. When we were both in committed monogamous relationships with other people, actually. We liked the sex with each other so much that we decided to quit dating those other people and start dating each other, plus also dating other-other people, because we knew we were entering into a relationship with another person who had no qualms about having sex with other people behind their partner’s back. So we figured we’d just decide that we’d be okay with that instead of being sad and mad about it when it eventually and definitely happened.
You can just do that, you know. You can just decide that something does not make you sad or mad. You can just say, “It does not at all bother me that the person I love and have chosen to spend my life with is having intimate times with another person, and is sharing parts of themself I will never know, no matter how open I make myself to them.” And then you can decide to make a rule that you are allowed to get sad and mad if they decide to share a Shroomami Bowl with anybody other than you. You can even write it in calligraphy on poster board and frame it on your bedroom wall if you want. That’s called “being an adult.”
I appreciate you saying that I can just invite my wife to lunch at Sweetgreen with the rest of the office gang if I ever want to go, while not violating the sacred agreement we made with each other. But I can’t. Lunchtime is the time when my wife has sex with other guys. So she won’t be able to make it to Sweetgreen. Because she’s too busy having sex with other guys. And I won’t go without her. Because I won’t cheat on my wife while she’s having sex with other guys.
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Aaron Hertzog (comedian, writer, friend) turns his thoughts, feelings, weird obsessions, and tiny meltdowns into comedy. Dumb thoughts and sharp takes about the cultural absurdities and common anxieties of modern life. To get weekly updates delivered right to your inbox, sign up for my mailing list.