OH CAROL

The concept for this posting, because it's almost Christmas and you feel you should crank out SOMETHING in observance of the holiday, was going to be a short list of Christmas Carols Sung By Singularly Ironic Celebrities Or Public Figures.

Pretty simple, and certainly nothing remotely original. For example:
"White Christmas" by Michael Richards,
"What Child Is This?" by former Florida congressman Mark Foley,
and so forth.

But beyond that, executing the concept started becoming difficult. For instance, "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" by Ted Haggard requires that the reader recognize Haggard by name as the big-time evangelical preacher who copped to patronizing a male hooker. Similarly, for "Feliz Navidad" by Tom Tancredo to work, you've got to know that Tancredo (Rep., Colorado) is probably the most rabid foe of undocumented Latinos in the House of Representatives, which is going some.

And I'm sure any visitor to my little Mensa magnet would know that. Just as he or she would certainly know who our current Secretary of State is, and her recent travels on behalf of peace, and yet still might not get "Oh Little Town Of Bethlehem" by Condi Rice. In part because it's not particularly funny. "I'll Be Home For Christmas" by Donald Rumsfeld would be better, but not by much, being rather an inside-the-beltway joke.

There were some frustrating near misses. If only the song were titled "Do You See What I See?," I'd have a neat little celeb trio hat trick: Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton. But, number one, the title is "Do You Hear...," and number two, you may not have paid any attention to recent incidents of the gals being papparazied while emerging pantyless from low-slung motor cars. At least I hope you haven't.

And "Oh Tannenbaum" by Mel Gibson just seemed like too great a stretch.

I like "Joy To The World" by Dick Cheney for its sheer preposterous incongruity, but that might not be evident to the casual visitor. And you could plug in a variety of names there, from Osama bin Laden to the Rev. Fred Phelps. The gag is just too generic.

I'm sure there are some worthy possibilities out there, but they're simply not on the cultural radar of most of us. "We Three Kings" by the best poker player alive, for example, but who knows who that is? Or "Silent Night" by the mayor of Richmond, California, a town that echoes with nocturnal gunfire on a regular basis, but if you don't live in the Bay Area, you are mercifully unaware of this. Mayor of Las Vegas might work, though.

But even if it did, it would be too little, too late. The basic premise--droll disconnect between song and performer--is simply too thin, at least this year.
So I'm just going to skip it.
Happy Holidays to all who pass this way.