Do you think it's tacky to write your Christmas kolumn after Christmas? Is it like wearing white pants after Labor Day?
Well, so what if it is? This has always been an unflinching, hard hitting kolumn where talk is cheap and nothing is taboo, and the Man can't stop me from writing about Christmas any gosh darn hell the phooey time I want to, because I'm an American, and I'm free to do what I gotta do and be a man and all stuff like that, yay.
The nice thing to think about this is that I love everyone so much that I'm willing to think about Christmas even way after it has happened, during a time when no one is and no one has to. No one should have to think about Christmas in January, but I am, because I love you, or something along those lines. Can't we all be friends and have had the Merriest Christmas in the Whole Wide World? Of course we did -and can!
That's one way to look at it (an illiterate way, but still, a way.)
And then the other way is... well, never mind the other way, just do the first one and none of your lip.
I'd like to dedicate this, my Kelp Kristmas Round-up of '07, to all the little people everywhere who still believe(d) in Christmas, and even the regular-size people who try so hard to be small but aren't, at this most sacred time of year.
Man, I really should've done this a couple of weeks ago.
Look, right now while we're still at a compleat standstill, momentum-wise, I'd like to mention that there is a bill coming up this Saturday at O'Shea's in West Dennis (at 348 Main Street / Rt. 28; 508-398-8887) that is simply adorable and I mean A-D-O-R-A-B-L-E, Adorable, that includes the legendary and hilarious older person Philo “Rockwell” King (AKA Rock King) vs. the also hilarious and ever-appealing Kami Lyle in an epic battle of the sexes. The history of the earth will be blithely portrayed in their mighty rolling and grunting would certainly be the wrong sentence to have after that last one; let's try another approach, quickly!
Rock truly is a local legend, a classic suit-and-tie comic, sophisticated but with a lovely crude streak that he lords over the (semi-) innocents, and he's been doing this a long time (and I mean a lo-o-ong time -this last season at his beloved Sand Bar in West Dennis was his 48th!) His sophistication is almost Catskillian in its epic range. Not many people do this any more and he does it really, really well. As you might expect, or even hope, there is an occasional reference to his wife, Cobra. And he'll probably also do a couple of songs, but you should go anyway.
If Kami Lyle majors in writing and singing (and her writing and singing is quite fine indeed), her minor is definitely something way sillier. Kami has mastered the art of personality, and the raps between her songs -usually unrehearsed ramblings about whatever is going on in Kamiland that day -are themselves well worth the price of admission. On occasion I've seen her improvise a jazz song read out of a catalog or a magazine picked at random. She's youthful, cute, and vivacious, and she's an enormous Rockwell King fan and bound to provide memorable counterpoint, not to mention trumpet.
This is a perfect beauty and the beast set up -but wait! That's not all! You also get Sean Brennan and Johnny O'Sullivan, and a loverly dinner, if you pay $30 (the non-dinner version goes for $15, which is a savings, also, of $15, if I'm not very much mistaken.) I'd go to this show even if I was dead -well, as long as I had $15, I would. And I'd do my level best to get there at 7:30, which is when it starts.
Ok, now I'm too excited to write the Christmas kolumn. Forget it! It's off. Maybe next week. Sorry. You guys must be totally dying for some shopping tips.
One thing before I go, though: Tim Dickey and Friends with Julie Wanamaker will be appearing at the Snow Library in Orleans on Saturday, February 2nd at 4pm. I know that's still a few weeks away, but that way you can make reservations now, unless it's one of those weird libraries that doesn't take reservations, which of course I wouldn't know, but this too could be a very nourishing program, despite the fact that some of the time, they will be playing bluegrass.
You're just going to have to sort it out yourselves.
