You know who sucks at driving? Everyone else.

I reside in a United State where genuine winters happen.  To give you some perspective, people here actually wrap chains around their tires for better traction.  Chains.  Around their tires.  Yeah, like goddamned Ghost Rider.  It can be that brutal on any given day between November and March.

Here, this movie would have been entitled Wednesday Morning.

We're talking snow, sleet, ice, hail, and the occasional blizzard-thunderstorm (yes, it is real, and, yes, it is Thor-smiting-earth-awesome).  As such, you might think the locals would get used to such conditions and adapt to them, however, more than a few seem to be all about proving that homo sapiens has risen above evolution, and can act in direct contradiction to it.  This means aggressively pursuing extinction via the most expedient route available, and everyone knows the expressway is the fastest route anywhere. Maybe this is just natural selection's killswitch for over-successful species.  The problem is, I'm not particularly keen on vehicular manslaughter.  It's just not my style.  Forget the economy, someone needs to step up and start enforcing some serious wintertime driving reform.  If automobile enthusiasts are going to forget each year what winter was like the previous, it's past time for a reality check.  "Driving too fast for conditions" and "reckless driving" are actual criminal offenses in most states, so I would recommend officers of the law start using them.

"Shit, I think the state troopers got a budget increase."

Yet, for reasons unknown, the promulgation of laws and their execution has not been yielded to me, so I am once again limited to registering a strongly-worded opinion on the matter.  My day will come.  In the meantime . . .

I get it: you have a 4-wheel-drive vehicle.  Your traction is superior to mine.  Yeehaw, git 'er done, and all that.  However, you are not piloting a Hovercraft, nor a rebel snowspeeder; the physics governing friction still apply to your vehicle, no matter how few miles it gets per gallon.  I have literally been behind a fucking multi-ton, 7.7-million horsepower dump trunk that fishtailed and spun out, so don't try to tell me your soccer mom "SUV" - a minivan in all but trim package - is capable of driving on black ice in whiteout conditions at 75 MPH.

As an exercise, see if you can spot the difference between these two roadways:

Figure (A)

Figure (B)

What's amazing (read: inconceivably retarded) to me is that people seem to confuse these on a regular basis.  If they aren't barreling along Figure (1) as though it's an open straightaway on the Autobahn midsummer, they are putzing down Figure (2) in some bizarre reversal of the Speed scenario, wherein their vehicle will explode if they accelerate above 17 MPH.  Or at least I assume that is the paranoid delusion under which they operate.  There is a happy medium here, people.  I have more sympathy for the latter, who at least err on the side caution, even if they still generally suck as human beings.

Some people just can't help it.

As for the former . . . well, not to be overly dickish, but I seriously wish minor accidents on every motorist who does this. No broken bones, just a little whiplash, a towing bill, and maybe $400 worth of body damage.  Except for the clueless, careless fuckwit who practically sideswiped my car as he passed it doing 15 over the regular-weather speed limit on an unplowed road.  Mr. Douchemaster Supreme can do a midair triple-axle on a hairpin turn and spontaneously combust upon impact, hopefully taking out another one of his kind in the process.  Please, God.  Whenever someone like this whips past me during a snowstorm, I assume they are (A) a mud-boggin,' two-trackin,' cousin-fuckin' redneck with a religious conviction about the superiority of their particular American truck brand, (B) a pompous, dual-Bluetooth-sporting jerkoff who's sure his "German-engineered" 4x4 can handle apocalyptic fire and brimstone on the road, or (C) . . .

In which case, drive as fast as you want, but you'll never outrun your shame.

Oh, and is it really too much to ask that you turn on your headlights?  I realize I have said this before, but it bears repeating: on an overcast day when that ice-cold bitch Mother Nature has covered every surface with six inches of crystalline peril, your white '99 Corolla barely registers in my peripheral vision.  On days such as this, you need to turn your lights on as much to help others see you as vice-versa.  You want to play ninja/Invisible Man/Predator, go put on a camouflage snowsuit and run around a wooded area, preferably one stalked by lots of nearsighted, overzealous game hunters.  Stay off my thoroughfares.

Which reminds me, if you simply must get onto my thoroughfares, don't be a complete jackass about it.  Think about it: the pavement is slick with slush, ice, accumulated snow, and probably the blood, pulped remains, and residual engine fluids from the last idiot like you.  This means that (1) my braking distance is significantly longer than normal, and (2) you cannot accelerate, especially from a dead-stop, as nimbly as usual.  So do not, for the love of Hermes (Greek patron god of travelers), try to dart out into traffic 30 feet ahead of me.  You know what my favorite is?  It's you pulling out in front of me when there isn't another car in sight, and waiting 2.3 seconds would yield a completely clear, safe roadway for you to accelerate on.  Ha, just kidding, you're a total fucking shit-thick moron who will get what's coming to him.

So, if you ever find yourself upside down in a ditch thanks to your own reckless driving, wondering which will be bigger, your hospital or repair bill, and you hear the eerie sound of laughter somewhere in the distance, it's not the concussion and associated brain damage - it is me, reveling in the karmic cycle that has landed you there.

*Not pictured: me, passing your stupid asses.

KP, out.

Guys, welcome to the new school

Since men first came together to (no doubt drunkenly) decide, Yeah, we can totally take that furry, angry, snake-nosed creature that's three times larger than all of us combined, with sticks, they have shared a common bond, an unspoken camaraderie replete with custom and convention, passed on from one generation to the next.  With time, it has only strengthened, yielding a gender-wide fraternity that realizes it's us, a solid team of testosterone, against them, the million one-woman teams that are mostly pitted against each other anyhow.  No wonder we won the sex wars for roughly the first six millennia of human history.

Well, times have changed, and we are long overdue to adapt.  Our system is going the way of whale-bone corsets and buggy whips.  We need to establish a new set of ground-rules for ourselves if we want to survive in this brave new world where women occasionally buy their own alcoholic beverages at public houses.  Change or die, as our man Darwin said.  And I am just the man to spearhead the movement.  Throughout, you will notice a certain old-fashioned chivalrous attitude pervades my thinking on the topic.  If that bothers you, I cordially invite you to go fuck yourself.

"Man Laws" was coined by Miller Lite, probably one of the only intentionally funny campaigns the corporation has launched in the past decade, as opposed to the ADHD-inspired, new-concept-a-month approach they presently take, each based on the ironically ridiculous premise that their beer is the more flavorful, heartier brew preferred by "real men."  So I won't use it.

Damn thing must be broken.

The term "Bro Code" has been bandied about in the modern parlance, but that is rapidly starting to have a distinctly . . . douchey connotation, which will become unavoidable in the very near future.  Jersey Shore and its pestilential, fist-pumping ilk are to blame, I'm sure, so I will be avoiding that phrase as well, needless to say (if you don't recognize a linked Word of the Day by now, forget about it).

Instead, I'll use the more palatable term "Gentlemen's Agreements" to encompass the unwritten (at least until I write them) rules governing the male comportment and behavior in relation to each other, the fairer sex, and society in general.  This will be, rather than a standalone article, an ongoing series of addenda, reflecting the continuous flux of social trends, dynamic nature of gender relations, and whatever the hell I find irritating and/or amusing at the moment.  My additions to the Gentlemen's Agreements will henceforth be signaled by this classy-as-balls icon:

In doing this, I hope to distance my proposed creed from the moronically macho, chauvinistic, oversexed, ignorant, and stereotyped bullshit most people associate with our gender.  It's a tall order, I am aware, especially for so short a man.  Let's see how I do.

"You can be my wingman anytime."

I am legally obliged to include this reference.  (If you don't get it, damn, I am old.)

God, the lexicon of terms associated with the whole "wingman" concept is mind-numbing, referred to somehow in roughly 10,871 club-related songs of the past year and probably the subject of several graduate theses by now.  From "grenades" to "cock-blocking," the sheer volume of nonsense guys spew in relation to going out looking for women and how they will help/hinder each other in said quest makes Freud's analysis of sexual repression and confusion seem understated and hopelessly naive.  As full-grown adult men, can't we just agree that, as a rule, we are there to support one another, and leave it at that?  There is elegance in simplicity.  Elaborate systems of checks and balances, various defcon scenario contingencies, and intricate strategies that make the Joker, Dr. No, and Lord Voldemort seem simple-minded should be the subject of humor and scorn, not serious contemplation.  If your "game" is so weak that it requires the coordination of a Mission: Impossible task-force, you have no business playing the field.

Ha, that's two Tom Cruise movie name-drops in one subheading!   Got you, fuckers.

All I'm saying is steer clear of prickish behavior, and you'll probably do all right.  And always remember that teeth-gratingly stupid, yet time-tested, irrevocable rule of yesteryear: bros before 'hos.  Your tail-chasing should never jeopardize your friendships, plain and simple.

Grow Up

While men's general lack of maturity is an issue that requires addressing, I am here referring specifically to the male tendency to act like pubescent kids with their first porn magazine when they see an attractive female.  You have seen such a specimen before, haven't you?  It's one thing to discreetly say to a buddy, "Hey, check that one out!"  Crude, yes, but inevitable as the next season of America Idol.  But if said girl is so undeniably hot, why do I need you to point her out to me?  If you assume I have approximately the same standards of feminine beauty as you, then presumably I was able to pick out the flawless face, bounteous cleavage, and glorious posterior without your assistance.  What more is there to talk about?

"Say, Jim, I have a healthy sexual interest in that young lady over there!"
"You don't say, Phil!  I was thinking much the same thing!"
"Cheers, old boy!"
*awkward pause*
"I'm saying I would put my penis in her vagina."
"Yes, I understand, that's what I meant, too."
"Right.  Just clarifying."
*awkward silence"
"I am really, very straight."

On some level, I recognize this is just masculine nature, but, really, what century are we living in?  Overtly-sexualized talk of this sort with your peers is roughly on par with being a construction worker who whistles and catcalls a passing female.  What exactly is the point?  I know it may be hard (yes, pun intended), but try to keep it to a minimum.

Man Up

This is an old-school one that it seems should go without saying.  I don't know whether to blame the residual influence of the hippie-dippy 60s with their stress on liberated sensitivity, or the more-recent trend of emo-ness as validated by pop psychobabble and a crybaby society, but either way I am fed up with it.  We are men, damn it, and we should not be sharing our feelings left and right.

Please deposit your emotions here. 

All right, let me elucidate: we can share our feelings, but know when enough is enough.  You only get a certain number of drunken catharses about any one subject.  And we all know what that subject is most probably going to be - women.  Whether it's the unattainable one you admire from afar, or the proverbial "one who got away," or the age-old "backstabbing slut who fucked you over at the Halloween party because she thought you wouldn't recognize her dressed as Ferris Bueller dry-humping that anonymous asshole in the corner."  Like the shameful back section of the video store where porn in shelved, we've all been there.  Does it suck?  Yes.  Do you need to vent about it?  For the sake of your mental health, very likely.  All of us understand that.  Do you need to dwell on the girl in question, mope, whine, and pine over her every time you're out with the boys for a few drinks?  The Gentlemen's Agreement is "not if you want anyone to drink with."

Notice how none of the people in this image resemble you?

I can make this pronouncement because I have been That Guy too many times; I speak from experience.  And even if it's not your love life (or lack thereof), the same rule applies when tearfully bemoaning your career, living situation, terminal illness, etc.  If you are continually overcome by an urge to open up to someone, go talk to your female friends, they eat that shit up.  (Though, be warned, your chances of getting laid by them drops to approximately negative nil.)

That's all for now, but rest assured I will post new guidelines as they occur to me.  I owe it to mankind, after all.

KP, out.

Happy anniversary (to me)!

Ok, so this is technically a few days late, but - be honest with yourself here - most of you take a week or so to check my new posts anyway.  I'm not judging you (specifically), so don't judge my punctuality.

Hard to believe it has been a year since I started this little vanity project, almost as hard as it is to believe so many people decided to follow it.  And even though only a dozen of you are willing to commit your names to my official list of fans (wise), judging by the hit-counter (when it's working, that is), an improbable number of you must be checking in here way more often than my content warrants.  Which means you either find my bile amusing, or, like detractors of Michael Moore or Glenn Beck, you just can't resist listening to a pompous mouthpiece you hate. So, whether this blog is to you an insightfully comedic gem on par with Voltaire's corpus of witty satire, or a morbid fascination more akin to the white-trash-party-slut fetish evoked by Ke$ha, I thank you all from the bottom of my withered heart.

It's kind of like a car-wreck: you can't look away.  And you want to throw gasoline on it.

Alternately, if this is your first time visiting, please click on another article and read it.  I really am better than this most of the time.

That said, this isn't going to be some cop-out flashback episode or a retrospective "Best of 2011" list like so many media outlets do.  No, I'm going to hit you with some original material, even if it is only middling.  Because that's how much your support means to me, and I want to show you that on this, my first anniversary.  I'll give you a moment to wipe the tear from your eye.

Moving on . . .

It's January 2012 and, unless those doomsaying Mayans were right and we only have another 10 months or so of existence left, it's the perfect time to take a fresh look at this every-changing world and our places in it, to reassess and reaffirm, to seize the day and generally live life by any number of similar cliches.  You know, just like any other day.  My motto for the month of January goes something like "New year.  Same world," or a variation thereof.

Feel free to print this out and put it on your bumper.

As a species, when we aren't paying lip-service to the vitality of change, we are usually pissing ourselves in fear of it.  Novelty scares us, even if we invite it.  So whenever I see the media begin to hype the impending dawn of a new planetary revolution, I can't help but roll my eyes.  Granted, that is my natural reaction to a lot of things, but bear with me, intrepid readers.  My reasoning runs thus: if you have the desire, will, and means to affect significant, lasting change in your life, why wait?  The New Year does not imbue you with magical "change" powers any more than it enables you to drink more alcohol than you normally would (see my guide to drinking).  Making a change at the cusp of a fairly arbitrary measure of time does not automatically grant fulfillment.  And it's not as if you enter into a blood-pact with the New Year, which will claim your soul and firstborn, should you fail.

This is also not how it works.

Do you want to lose weight?  Great.  Nix the fucking McDiet and Segue cart.  Want to quit smoking?  Slap on a few nicotine patches, grit your tar-stained teeth, and forewarn your social circle.  Want to settle down, find the right person, and stop screwing piss-drunk strangers in nightclub bathrooms?  Quit going to shitholes where people like you hang out.  Doing these things in bleakest midwinter isn't going to make them any easier, trust me.  Generally speaking, it is darker, colder, more stressful, and more depressing than any other time of year; in other words, the time when you are least-responsive to shakeups in your routine, lifestyle, or outlook.  Sick as it may be, we take comfort in the familiar, even if the familiar is not particularly reassuring in itself, when we are faced with external pressures and threats.  How else do you explain people going back to George Lopez time and again?

Because it is a simple fact that the vast majority of people's New Year's resolutions are very reminiscent of Herman Cain's presidential campaign: an overblown, superficial, halfhearted show destined to fall flat before reaching full-steam.  It makes people feel better about themselves when they commit to bettering their situations in whatever capacity, even if deep inside they know damn well they are just counting down the days until they can throw in the towel and say they "gave it their best shot."  As my CNN affiliate David Frum shrewdly pointed out in a recent article, the average American is sort of a fat, mostly lazy piece of shit who is just getting fatter and lazier.  Those may not have been his exact words, and maybe he said them like they were some sort of profound revelation, but that was the gist.  And he authoritatively confirmed my assumption that most people can't keep a promise, least of all to themselves.

"I promise to stop breaking promises to myself . . . at least not when I'm looking."

If your life is going to have a turning point, a moment of clarity that causes you to totally reevaluate and reorder your priorities, it will not conveniently coincide with December 31st.  Nor should you try to force it.  When you feel you want to change, make like Nike and just do it.  Don't procrastinate until the calendar tells you it's the appointed time, for the love of Janus (word of the day!).

That said, I'm not swearing any vows or making any promises this year, to you or myself.  No, I am going to keep doing what I do best - I will think what I want and say what I think, and to hell with anyone who doesn't like it.  But, of course, I am always open to year-round feedback (especially fan mail, which I am still waiting for *fingers crossed*), and I will not be held hostage by my joke-a-day Garfield calendar if I decide a change is needed.  Just kidding.  Garfield isn't funny anymore.

See?

So, on behalf of myself, Carson the Flag Day Aardvark, God, and all the rest of the running jokes here at This Is My Bar, let me wish you a perfunctory Happy New Year, because everyone has to do so all this month, and thank you once more for validating my intellectual narcissism.

KP, out.

Trending now

For the most part, trends are things I generally view with a mixture of suspicion and outright loathing.  But I am fond of the "Annoying Things" lists that are popping up online, probably because they sound like stuff I would write.  So, I went ahead and did just that.  After each entry, you will notice I have inserted a small icon to indicate my level of annoyance.

Facepalm
Your behavior is just plain embarrassing, and I shouldn't have to explain why.  While you aren't really hurting me, society is worse for your existence.

Fuck Off
You are being more than irritating, and you know it.  Stop it.  I can feel my blood-pressure actively rising. 

Bitch Slap
This is your reality-check.  Everyone gets a free one.

Punch
You were warned.  Now comes the pain.

Wearing chinos with white athletic shoes

You think it says, Classy yet casual, classic and versatile.  Unfortunately, what it really says is, No definable sense of fashion outside of what your overprotective, domineering mother tells you to wear.

Nothing excuses this, not even blindness.

No one, bar none, can make this look work.  Every poly-cotton fiber of it screams "loser" at full volume.  It is the defining combo for the "hip" youth pastor in superficially-accepting non-denominational megachurches, and the uncloseted uber-dork who, for whatever reason, won't wear swords & sorcery t-shirts or Domu beanie-caps.

Acting as if there is a world of difference between American light lagers

Beer was the last alcoholic beverage I came around to, and only Guinness, sampled for the first time in my third year of college, convinced me I would ever be able to down more than a pint of the stuff.  So maybe I was a born beer-snob.  Since then, I have tried many a brew, from the cheapest fizzy swill to dollar-per-ounce session beers.  You know what?  I can drink them all.  As a result, I want nothing more than to smack smug idiots who champion one American diet lager above all others, whatever their preference may be.  It doesn't matter.  Can you tell the difference between them?  Yes.  Do any of them taste much like anything, let alone good?  No.

"Ah, this remotely golden, frothy, borderline bitter corn-yeast runoff is distinctly better than that vaguely yellow, tasteless, almost odorless, slightly carbonated water byproduct."

Shut the fuck up and drink it, frat-boy.  When you can wax intellectual about IBUs and lacing on the glass, we'll talk about your "tastes."

Wearing sandals and/or shorts in December

It's not summer, and you're not a hobbit.  Trust me, I know, I am as close to being one of them as possible: short, curly-haired, bad with technology, but surprisingly tough when push comes to shove.

Pictured: not you.

So stop pretending you're "just more comfortable" with your toes exposed to testicle-retracting temperatures, which you should be well aware of, given the open vent to your crotch provided by those drafty jorts.  I don't know what you are trying to prove, but you fail.

Pet love

Your animal companion holds a special place in your heart, I get it.  I've had lots of different pets, and every one was special.  Where that affection crosses over into weird, borderline psychosis is somewhere between slapping a "I Love My [Specific Dog Breed]" sticker on your bumper and purchasing these:

Seek help.  Please.

Because, really, you are starting to creep people out.  Knock it off, or I'm calling the vice squad, Bestiality division.

"i"Crap

These are products that adopt a minimalist, white color scheme and add a lower-case "i" to the front of their name to cash in on the success of a certain faddish company.

*NOTE: If this actually was one of "their" products, they'd put the sharpening aperture in the bottom of the device, just to be different.

It says, "Hey, man, screw proper capitalization and punctuation, we're a savvy, new wave, hipster trend that all the squares still using the world's most common operating system secretly wish they had."  (1) You are not Mac, so stop stealing their shit.  (2) Don't ever try to be Mac.  Seriously.

Pop Evil

This is an up-and-coming band half of you have probably never heard of (lucky you), but I think could best be described as a heavier Nickelback.

"VRRROOOM, I'm an airplane!"

One of my biggest regrets in life is that I failed to punch the lead douche-tool in the face when I had the opportunity almost four years ago.  If I had only known the levels of bland, quasi-hardcore mediocrity they would hover at, I would have acted . . .

"Where is (insert name here)?" news

This is probably the most sickening form of exploitative, sensationalistic "news" coverage in existence.  The bottom-feeding, soulless puppy-rapists who run stations like HLN (the result of a shameful one-night stand between CNN and Fox News, aborted one trimester too late) literally scour the daily stories from across the country to find any hint of (1) a missing white child, (2) a missing, pretty white girl, or (3) some twisted combination of the two.

Your face sticks this way when your soul is sucked out via your anus by Belial, Lord of Lies.

Then, once these opportunistic parasites have attached themselves to a tragedy, the orphanage-bombing executives and hack "reporters" of these tabloid networks spin the story into absurd proportions, promote it like a summer blockbuster, and open the bidding for advertisement time-slots.

Not turning on your headlights just because it's technically day

I don't know where you live (or do I? *wink*), but my state of residence gets real winters.  That means overcast skies, some form of shitty, insidious precipitation in the air, and slick roadways more often than not.  In other words, not so much a Winter Wonderland as a Frigid, Slippery, Grayish Twilight-Land.  And you want to drive your slush-splattered silver 1996 Chrysler Seabring with the bald tires and diaper-thin break-pads at 4:30 in the evening sans headlights?  You may as well turn on the cloaking device as well, because your car is effectively invisible.

Validating social media bullshit

I remember when I first started vetting colleges.  Back then, you looked up their rankings in prestigious publications, visited the campus, talked with advisers both in- and outside the school, and perused their catalog for courses related to your interests.  Nowadays:

I kind of want to scream.

To say that I bemoan the modern state of education is like saying people were miffed when the Hindenburg went down in a fiery blaze.  For those who went to a school where the collegiate ranking was determined by their volume of web-traffic, here's what my metaphor refers to.  By this criteria, I'm practically an institution of higher learning in my own right, while several of my more-popular friends should be considered Ivy League.

The term "shorty/shawty/shaurty/sha-tee"

Justin Bieber regularly uses it, for Christ's sake.  I am declaring it dead.

KP, out.

Ho, ho, ho-hum

What to write about today?  It's been over a week since my last post, which is like a year-long sabbatical in the blogsphere.  Nothing is particularly inspiring/enraging me right now, at least nothing I can make sound funny.  Let's see . . . oh, wait.

It's Christmastime.

Why not take a shot at that?  I mean, everyone else on the Internet is.  It's practically required that you do some manner of "Holiday Special" in December, and it relieves me of the need to come up with a topic on my own.  So, my take on Christmas.  I'll give you two guesses how I feel about the holidays, and the correct answer rhymes with 'pisenchantment.'  Can you figure it out?  Yeah, I'm pretty much over Thanksmaskwanzakkahyear's and have been for a long time now.  For this and other revelations, read on.

"Here's another shocker: I like BEER."

The one thing everyone, no matter how cheery and Prozac-powered, is allowed to express a degree of cynicism about is something I, a professed and ordained cynic, also do not care for.  And it's not because they've "taken the Christ out of Christmas."  Historically speaking, Jesus has always had pretty stiff competition for the holiday, and it can be argued that, in fact, someone originally "put the Christ in Paganmas," so this is shit just coming full circle.  Nor is it the opposite - I'm not hating on the Anointed One, either.  The proverbial reason for the season, whatever that means to you, is sort of irrelevant to me.

Maybe it's a gut reaction to the saccharine, dewy-eyed sentiment associated with the season.  Maybe it's the bittersweet memories of my long-gone childhood, which time has slowly robbed of its magic.  Maybe it's because Christmas has lost the bulk of its significance for me as I shed religion, tradition, and materialism, the central tenets of the holiday.  Maybe it's the rampant supersaturation of the year's closing months with "Holiday culture," like twinkling lights going up before the first snowflake falls, morons wearing sweaters with bulbs woven into them, and every business looping the same 23 songs that were tired cliches during the Nixon administration.  Maybe it's the fact that otherwise normal people kick off the season by stealing, trampling, macing, and even killing each other for material things.

"Peace on Earth and goodwill toward- GIVE ME THAT FUCKING XBOX, TWAT!"

I'll stick with Flag Day and Carson the Aardvark, thanks.

Actually, yes, I can say with some certainty it is in fact all of those things.  I am not claiming any originality here; I am one of those Scrooge/Grinch types who just can't get into the spirit anymore.  I don't necessarily hate it, I just don't really care one way or the other.  Aside from the occasional peptic ulcer that develops after hearing the 76th repetition of "Walking in a Winter Wonderland," the holidays do not elicit a strong reaction from me.  Sue me.

As opposed to Katy Perry, who gets a surprise orgasm from them.  Apparently.

But, hey, just because I'm not down with Yuletide joy and shit, doesn't mean I am disqualified from spreading a little knowledge, right?  So, without further ado, here is my list of Things You Should Already Know About Christmas.

1) We Got the Day Wrong

You ever notice how the Nativity Story never mentions the bitter cold of winter, unlike that pretty-yet-insipid Christmas carol, "In the Bleak Midwinter"?  And the shepherds who receive the Annunciation (think of it as a divine memo) via angelic choirs are out in the pastures with the flocks, which is kind of weird, given that December isn't exactly prime grazing-season.  There's also no allusion to any Roman holiday occurring, even though a little festival called Saturnalia would have been going on at the time under the Roman government - a festival so wildly popular amongst the citizenry that they rioted whenever an emperor attempted to curtail it.   Just to give you an idea how popular Saturnalia was, the people dared the wrath of Caligula - more or less acknowledged even in his own day as Supreme Bugfuck Crazy Batshit of the Roman dynasts - to preserve the hallowed tradition.  The commoners, who had every reason to expect their insane potentate would douse a city block in honey and release imported rabid badgers and call it social welfare, had the guts to tell ol' Caligula to fuck off if he thought he was going to cut Saturnalia short.

Pictured: urban renewal, Roman-style.

And do you know what?  It worked.  Occupy Rome, in an era when it was legal to crucify people for fun, achieved its goal.  In fact, the festival was so popular that it would probably have been hard to nix even if, say, the religion it was based on fell out of favor.  Even if the official faith of the state were changed.  Kind of like Emperor Theodosius decided to do in 380 AD, making the Roman Empire a formally Christian state.  Isn't it a tad strange that, given the absence of biblical evidence for a December Nativity, the celebration of Jesus's birthday started being observed in the latter half of that month, coinciding with the older festival of Saturnalia? Which was tied in with the winter solstice, an astronomical event hallowed by most of the provincial pagan tribes the newly-Christianized Roman missionaries were attempting to convert/placate/conquer?  Pretty zany coincidence, huh?

But as long as we're on the subject . . .

2) We Got the Story Wrong

This probably comes as a surprise to you if you haven't brushed up on your New Testament trivia, but the Nativity (that's the birth of Jesus Christ, last of the prophets, savior of mankind, God incarnate) is only mentioned in two out of the four Gospels.  That's 50% of them.  Mark, usually deemed the most historically-accurate Book, makes zero mention of it.  That's sort of a monumental omission on the part of a chronicler.  Unlike, say, George Lucas initially skipping all the backstory of Star Wars so he could jump ahead to "the good parts" and rock socks with the Vader revelation, the Apostles would presumably have felt the need to detail minutia like, you know, a virgin birth, a brand-new star moving across the sky, and the heavens parting to reveal a host of freakin' angels who told a bunch of yokels that God had just beamed down.

"Sorry, Mark, this opening is good, really riveting stuff, but it makes the story too damn long and slow for the audience.  It's gotta go."

If you're a historian, especially one with a proselytizing agenda, you would not fail to mention in your magnum opus that the dude you are writing about, your personal friend and a man you believe to be the messiah, had this complex, intriguing, fucking magical origin story.  Unless you'd never heard that.  Here's the thing: most biblical scholars, including the ones who graduated seminary and are standing at your pulpit, agree the tale of Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and angels, wise men (never numbered in the Bible, by the by), talking animals and drummer boys, is 99% made up.  No historical basis.  And yet we still center the religious holiday of the year around it.  Below is a chart I did not make, because I'm not that smart, showing to what degree the Gospels (not counting John, who was the Hunter S. Thompson of the Disciples) are actually telling the same story.

Not much.

Curiously, most Bibles don't include this reference chart.  Many Christians these days will argue it's the essence rather than the literal truth of the Bible that matters most, but you have to admit that's a pretty big dose of "literary license" to take.

But I've bagged on JC enough.  How about his main adversary, his biggest rival, the greatest threat to the "true" meaning of Christmas?

3) Santa Claus - Dissociative Identity Disorder Sufferer

Whether you were raised in a religious or secular household (mine being mixed), you had some kind of exposure to the Santa Clause legend.  To be fair, he benefits from being a *SPOILER ALERT* fictional character, as opposed to a worshiped figure.  So it's acceptable for his history to be bit dodgy, drawing from different sources.  But it's when you actually delve into those sources that shit gets downright weird.  It's old hat at this point to say that Santa is essentially God for children, but considering that fact, it is surprising how little people know about his fabricated story, aside from general associations of elves, the North Pole, reindeer, and trespassing.  The main influence on the character most Americans know is Sinterklaas, the Dutch folkloric hero.  I know what you're thinking: "Isn't Van Helsing the Dutch's traditional, go-to cultural hero?"

"Johnny Appleseed was a bitch.  I got your 'Choir of the Bells' right here."

Well, before Hugh Jackman donned leather and tight pants in an ill-conceived homage to Bram Stoker's Gothic masterpiece, there was a guy called Sinterklaas.  He gave gifts to children in December, he wore a lot of red. He also arrived in the Netherlands, dressed as a Catholic bishop, annually via steamboat from Spain.  You know, just like Santa Claus.  Due to a really complicated series of documented events involving the Bishop of Myra (in Turkey), international grave-robbing, and medieval blackface, the Dutch created their wintertime holiday icon, Sinterklaas.  And this was in the days of post-Christianized Europe, when people were starting to realize you needed that niggling detail of proof to claim something was true.

Their fictitious character was allegedly based on the historic Greek Saint Nicholas, an epithet still hilariously applied to the bullshit caricature that is Santa Claus.  And his hagiography (word of the day, non-Catholic bitches!) is chock-full of Christmas cheer: he resurrected three murdered children (or possibly clerks) whose cured remains were going to be sold off as pork by a demented butcher, and secretly supplied marriage dowries for three impoverished young women destined to become prostitutes, because that was the only career opportunity at the time for poor girls.  Just like in the carols, right?

Oh, and let's not forget the pagan influences.  Gift-giving around the winter solstice was associated in the Germanic region of pre-Christian Europe with the Norse deity Odin, an old, one-eyed, bearded death god who liked to ride his eight-legged horse Sleipnir through the Viking villages, rewarding those children who fed his mutant equine straw or carrots, left in their boots hearth-side, with candy and novelties.  Sound familiar?  That's because Odin was a key inspiration behind a major Hollywood film.

Beverly Hills Cop 3.

Looking at this bizarre amalgam of history, half-truths, and bad acid trips, American marketers of the 19th century said to themselves Yeah, that's a children's icon!  Let's use that image to sell shit!  Because Easter traditions weren't confusing enough.  And so was born the jolly old elf, despite never being labeled an elf before.

Which is how he got so many fangirls.

So I hope you found this breakdown fun and informative, if a bit illusion-shattering, and may your Nonspecific, Religiously-Neutral Midwinter Holiday of Material Consumption be a happy one, full of warm, fuzzy feelings.  Or, barring that, a consistent peppermint schnapps buzz.

KP, out.