Let the Madness begin. No, not March Madness, nincompoop - it's October. Christmas Madness.
Lonesome Onry and Mean doesn't know who officially decides these things, all we know is that it's the first week of October, Halloween hasn't even come and gone yet, but in the past 24 hours we've received a Frank Sinatra Christmas CD, a Ray Charles Christmas CD and an email tout for a Lee Greenwood Christmas CD.
Nothing depresses LOM more than Christmas music. LOM is not normally subject to the evils of depression except during the buildup to Christmas. But leading up to Christmas we are continually confronted with ever present Christmas music in every mall, restaurant, and gas station. We swear they throw the switch on Christmas Muzak at Home Depot at one minute past midnight on Thanksgiving. These things work bad magic on LOM's head.
Now, LOM has nothing against Sinatra, although we don't sit around pining for Ol' Blue Eyes' stuff. So we'll probably just wrap his nice promotional CD up and give it to our cheese-loving-est in-law who always gives us one of those summer sausages from Wal-Mart.
And if Ray Charles wants to do a Christmas CD, right on, Brother Ray. Not saying we'll listen to it, but we'd bet if anyone was going to do a Christmas CD we
would actually listen to, it is Brother Ray. But we'd still rather hear him sing "Hit the Road Jack" or "Drownin' In My Own Tears" than "Jingle Bells" or "Oh Tannenbaum."
But LOM has to draw the line at Lee Greenwood. In fact, we feel it is our duty to somehow snuff the words "Lee Greenwood" out of the lexicon entirely. Or at least confine his simplistic, smarmy, calculated cheeseball-isms to places like Vegas and Dallas, where - as anyone who saw Jerry Jones's opening night spectacle at the new Cowboys stadium can attest - glitz and cheese have always been mistaken for good taste.
And while we're on the subject, LOM would also support a law restricting the playing of Christmas music in public spaces to Dec. 20-25. Violators will be required to listen to Ministry at 150 decibels until their ears bleed. Now that's some change LOM can get behind.
Gee, we feel better now that we're in the holiday spirit. Ho, ho, ho.