Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “God Bless Mister B. At Christmastime” — Blackadder’s Christmas Carol (1988)

From the unbelievably hilarious Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, which if you’ve never seen, you pretty much need to drop everything you’re doing right now and catch it on Netflix or whatever streaming services are available. The first time I ever watched this program — I’m thinking around 1993 or ’94, maybe — it instantly became one…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “O Come All Ye Faithful” — Weezer (2008)

Talk to most people about bands like Weezer, Green Day, Foo Fighters, or any neo-power-pop band that emerged in the mid ’90s, and there’s always huge debate on when exactly they “sold out” or “went commercial” or “started to suck”, etc. etc. I dunno, man. Some of them were always commercial, or even perhaps “always…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Merry Christmas Baby” — Otis Redding (1967)

It’s really, REALLY hard to talk up an Otis Redding song. Try it sometime. It ain’t easy. It’s freakin’ OTIS REDDING. But I realized I was missing some classic R&B from my list, and man there are some great ones to choose from. I’ll start with Redding’s 1967 cover of the classic Christmas standard Merry…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” — George Harrison (1973)

I’m not a particularly religious man, by any stretch of the imagination. I think that’s the rub, really. “Religious man”. As in, religion is a man-made construct: a home-made, grassroots means of interpreting God. And yet also a bureaucratic, flawed, collective means of interpreting the Universe, Creation, Existence, and Eternity. It just doesn’t work all…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Silver Bells” — Twisted Sister (2006)

“TWIST-ed SIS-TER?!!” Well sure… look no one can deny their place in pop culture history for such cheese- and amaze-balls rock anthems in ’80s rock video classics We’re Not Gonna Take It and I Wanna Rock (their catalog is surprisingly good before then, but those songs get zero airplay/recognition from anyone who isn’t Eddie Trunk), and Dee Snider,…

Race Review: 2013 Palm Beaches Half Marathon (12/08/2013), or: “Sun sun sun, here it comes…”

Continuing with our 2013-2014 Florida Storm Series coverage… The 2013 Palm Beaches Marathon & Run Fest weekend went down on the weekend of December 6th, 2013. This was a pretty inclusive event, one that hosted 5K, 10K, Half and Full marathons; something for pretty much runners of every stripe. “Every stripe”… what an odd turn…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Sleigh Ride” — Debbie Gibson (1992)

Yeah hear me out on this… Boots absolutely adores this holiday classic covered by Ms. Gibson from the 1992 A Very Special Christmas 2. And I wanted to score some Brownie Points with my better half so I’m including it my esteemed list. And I know what you’re thinking: how on EARTH are the words “Debbie…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Run Rudolph Run” — Lemmy Kilmister, Billy Gibbons, Dave Grohl (2008)

An exchange from the 1994 movie Airheads: [Chazz and Rex are testing Chris] Chazz: Who’d win in a wrestling match: Lemmy or God? Chris Moore: Lemmy. [Rex imitates a game show buzzer] Chris Moore: … God? Rex: Wrong, dickhead, trick question. Lemmy *IS* God. Well now who can argue with that? Truth be told, there were…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Let My Love Open The Door” — Pete Townshend (1980)

OK bear with me on this one… Pete Townshend’s classic 1980 hit Let My Love Open The Door is not, strictly speaking, a “holiday song” by any imagination. It is, however, a deeply spiritual and extremely uplifting one. Ostensibly a love song, this Top 10 hit from his Empty Glass solo album is indeed about love, but not romantic…

Noshing In Wonderland #6: Flying Fish Cafe, or: “All that night and all the next, swam without looking back…”

The Flying Fish Cafe, located at the Boardwalk Resort in Walt Disney World, is categorized (by Disney) as a “signature” dining experience, which means everything is priced with an even more outrageous mark-up than Disney is used to getting away with. That’s to be expected, of course, but the even bigger question remains “Is it…