GIVE TIL IT HURTS!

Christmas music, forsooth!

As we come down the Christmas home-stretch, I thought I’d give y’all a little something special tonight.

Yep, that’s your humble host crooning that one, backed by the ever-fabulous Belmont Playboys. The audio was recorded, using acoustic instruments, on a crappy little hand-held cassette recorder at the pre-refurbishment Belk Theater adjacent to what used to be the old Carolina Theater on Tryon Street, where none other than Elvis himself performed back in 1956 on his drive to becoming the once and forever King of Rock and Roll. The video was shot (and later edited) by our old friend John Autry, former CLT city councilman and current NC Congresscritter, at the Van Landingham Estate in the heart of Plaza-Midwood.

The shirt I’m wearing was actually my brother’s, who probably still has it hanging in his closet. It was a little snug on me, there having been somewhat more of me then than there is now. John didn’t care for the two shirts I had brought along for the shoot, thinking it would be better if the front-guy wore something more colorful and less drab than my own threads.

You graybeards may recognize the TV set in the intro as being from the long-defunct Nashville Network’s old morning show, whatever it was called. It’s for real, not spliced in or otherwise faked: TNN aired our “Blue Christmas” vid for like three years hand-running at Christmastime, which definitely made our days that much more merry and bright. The above was taped on VHS the first time it ran by my old girlfriend Wendy’s mom, then converted to digital several years back by some local service our drummer Mark found.

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Moar Christmas tuneage

Tonight’s musical offering is “When Christmas Comes To Town,” a lovely, affecting little song from the soundtrack of the 2004 film The Polar Express. Background:

The Polar Express is a 2004 American animated adventure fantasy film directed by Robert Zemeckis, who co-wrote the screenplay with William Broyles Jr., based on the 1985 children’s book of the same name by Chris Van Allsburg. It stars Tom Hanks in multiple roles, with Daryl Sabara, Nona Gaye, Jimmy Bennett, and Eddie Deezen in supporting roles. The film features human characters animated using live action and motion capture computer animation, with sequences for the latter taking place from June 2003 to May 2004. Set on Christmas Eve, it tells the story of a young boy who sees a mysterious train bound for the North Pole stop outside his window and is invited aboard by its conductor. He joins other children as they embark on a journey to visit Santa Claus preparing for Christmas.

The Polar Express premiered at the Chicago International Film Festival on October 13, 2004, and was theatrically released in the United States on November 10, 2004, by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film received mixed reviews from critics and initially grossed $286 million against a record-breaking $165–170 million budget, which was the biggest sum for an animated feature at the time. Later re-releases helped propel the film’s gross to $314 million worldwide, and it was later listed in the 2006 Guinness World Records as the first all-digital capture film. The Polar Express is also the last film appearance for Michael Jeter before his death and is dedicated to his memory.

Hanks optioned the book in 1999 with the hopes of playing the conductor and Santa Claus. One of the conditions of the sale was that the resulting film not be animated. Zemeckis, however, felt that a live-action version was unfeasible, claiming that it “would look awful, and it would be impossible – it would cost $1 billion instead of $160 million.” Zemeckis felt that such a version would rob the audience of the art style of the book which he felt was “so much a part of the emotion of the story”. The two acquired the rights to the book the following year. In order to keep his vision a new process was created by which actors would be filmed with motion capture equipment in a black box stage which would then be animated to make the resulting film. Hanks stated that this method of working was “actually a return to a type of acting that acting in films does not allow you to do”, comparing the process to performing a play in the round. The idea of a Scrooge puppet was conceived when Zemeckis looked at his childhood toys, one of which was a puppet.

Hanks plays five roles in the film including that of a small child (whose voice would later be dubbed in by Daryl Sabara). Initially Zemeckis considered having him play every role, but after trying this, Hanks grew exhausted, and they whittled down the number. Principal photography of the motion-capture sequences began in June 2003, and wrapped in May 2004.

The soundtrack of the film, titled The Polar Express: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, was released on November 2, 2004, by Reprise Records, Warner Music Group and Warner Sunset Records. The song, “Believe” was written by Glen Ballard and Alan Silvestri and was nominated for Best Original Song at the 77th Academy Awards. It was sung at the 77th Academy Awards show by original performer Josh Groban with Beyoncé and won a Grammy Award in 2006.

The album was certified Gold by the RIAA in November 2007. Having sold 724,000 copies in the United States, it is the best-selling film soundtrack/holiday album hybrid since Nielsen SoundScan started tracking music sales in 1991.

Most of the original orchestral score featured in the film was not released on the soundtrack and has never been released. The soundtrack mostly comprises only songs featured in the film. A limited number of promotional “For Your Consideration” CDs, intended to showcase the film’s score to reviewers of the film, were released in 2005. This CD contained nearly the complete score, but none of the film’s songs. Various bootleg versions of the soundtrack, combining both the official soundtrack album and the orchestral-only CD, have since surfaced.

Much more at the link, including an interesting architectural side-note I hadn’t known about before.

The buildings at the North Pole in the film represent an earlier era in American railroading. Building design drew inspiration from the Pullman neighborhood in Chicago, home of a railroad car manufacturer, the Pullman Company.

Huh, how ’bout that. Anyways, on to the embed.

Having grown up with Charlie Brown, the Grinch, and various other 60’s Christmas TV special classics—not to mention the all-time greatest Christmas flick, Capra’s unforgettable It’s A Wonderful Life—I didn’t think all that highly of Polar Express the first time I saw it. I mean, the animation was amazing, the musical numbers were incredibly well-done, the story was cute enough, but still, my all-in-all reaction was just kind of…MEH. But after repeated viewings it did grow on me, and now I very much dig it.

Urethra, I have found it!

As Kelly Bundy used to say. Ladies and germs,  I give you what just might be the greatest Christmas tune in history.

Via the AoSHQ ONT.

Update! Another superb AoSHQ find, this one via Weasel’s Sunday Gun Thread.

As you might guess from the screen grab, Liberal Tears appears to be for real. The blurb puts it straight:

DESCRIPTION
Guns have only two enemies; Rust and Liberals. Liberal Tears Gun Oil protects against both. We have bottled Liberal Tears to create a CLP that gives you guaranteed 2nd Amendment protection.

I hope the folks behind LT make a million bazillion dollars off the idea.

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Moar Christmas tunage

Man, can these kids sing or WHAT?!?

Although I picked this up from that Irish Christmas music channel I mentioned last week, strictly speaking the absolutely gorgeous Pie Jesu isn’t actually a Christmas song.

“Pie Jesu” (/ˈpiː.eɪ ˈjeɪ.zuː, -suː/ PEE-ay-YAY-zu; original Latin: “Pie Iesu” /ˈpi.e ˈje.su/) is a text from the final couplet of the hymn “Dies irae”, and is often included in musical settings of the Requiem Mass as a motet. The phrase means “pious Jesus” in the vocative.

The settings of the Requiem Mass by Luigi Cherubini, Antonin Dvořák, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Duruflé, John Rutter, Karl Jenkins, Kim André Arnesen and Fredrik Sixten include a “Pie Jesu” as an independent movement. Decidedly, the best known is the “Pie Jesu” from Fauré’s Requiem. Camille Saint-Saëns, who died in 1921, said of Fauré’s “Pie Jesu”: “Just as Mozart’s is the only ‘Ave verum corpus’, this is the only ‘Pie Jesu’.”

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s setting of “Pie Jesu” in his Requiem (1985) has also become well known and has been widely recorded, including by Sarah Brightman, Charlotte Church, Jackie Evancho, Sissel Kyrkjebø, Ylvis, Marie Osmond, Anna Netrebko, and others. Performed by Sarah Brightman and Paul Miles-Kingston, it was a certified Silver hit in the UK in 1985.

The mood set by the above achingly-beautiful Angelis performance of Lloyd-Webber’s version is as placid and soul-soothing as Christmas morn itself, making it close enough to Christmas music to do for me. Translation from the Latin:

Pious Jesus,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Give them rest.

Lamb of God,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Give them rest,
Everlasting
Rest.

If there really are “choirs of angels” waiting to sing us to our Heavenly rest, this HAS to be exactly what they sound like.

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Product: ENDORSED

With all my heart and soul.

Saw that this morning, and I haven’t stopped laughing since. Having broken the bank and gone without eating a cpl-three days last month to buy my musically-gifted daughter a 70s-vintage King Tempo trumpet off of eBay, to be specific:

Nickel plated, with raw-brass tuning slides and valve caps for contrast, in A-1 shape for its age—a bit of corrosion at the grab-points from skin oils and/or sweat, along with some very minor scratches and scuffs, as one must expect with anything this old. The case is in slightly worse shape, alas; as you can see from the pic, the felt has separated from the shell up by the grab handle. But no worries: my friend Greg is generously donating his like-new, barely used Benge case to make up for it.

I played a King myself during my band career and for many years after (a 601, if I remember right), and my poor horn was one hell of a lot more battered and beat-up by the time I parted with it than this fine instrument is. Hey, the great Harry James was a King man throughout his illustrious career—what better endorsement could one possibly want?

So you can bet your sweet bippy my young ‘un will be getting herself a BrassTache from dear old dad this Christmas to adorn and enliven her noble old King. She inherited the same silly, juvenile sense of humor her old man has, so I know she’s gonna love it all to pieces. And laugh herself sick over it, like papa did.

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What, you actually thought I WASN’T gonna re-run this one?

Since it seems to be my night for embedding music vids and all.

It’s Cantus, so of course it’s incredible, as one would surely expect. But this year, I’d like to offer a few words on the song itself.

IMHO, “The Little Drummer Boy” is one of the most underrated of all the trad Christmas carols, maybe THE most. I mean, seriously, now: the lyrics are simple but deeply touching; the melody is nothing short of gorgeous, the vocal harmonies ditto; the concept itself is a paragon of creativity, imagination, and understated elegance, as affecting as it is unassuming, even humble. The song gradually crescendos from a pianissimo murmur to a crashing, soul-stirring, fortississimo climax, leaving the listener practically gasping for breath, joyously drained by the end.

The final stanzas exemplify what it is I’m talking about here:

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum
On my drum?

Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum

There, see what I mean? Over lo, these many years I’ve heard God-only-knows how many renditions and arrangements of “Drummer Boy,” and for the life of me I can’t remember a single one I disliked. A little background info:

The song was originally titled “Carol of the Drum”. While speculation has been made that the song is very loosely based on the Czech carol “Hajej, nynjej”, the chair of the music department at (composer Katherine Kennicott) Davis’s alma mater Wellesley College claims otherwise. In an interview with Music Department Chair Claire Fontijn, the College writes:

Inspiration for “The Little Drummer Boy” came to Davis in 1941. “[One day], when she was trying to take a nap, she was obsessed with this song that came into her head and it was supposed to have been inspired by a French song, ‘Patapan,’” explained Fontijn. “And then ‘patapan’ translated in her mind to ‘pa-rum-pum-pum,’ and it took on a rhythm.” The result was “The Little Drummer Boy.”

Davis’s interest was in producing material for amateur and girls’ choirs: Her manuscript is set as a chorale, in which the tune is in the soprano melody with alto harmony, tenor and bass parts producing the “drum rhythm” and a keyboard accompaniment “for rehearsal only”. It is headed “Czech Carol freely transcribed by K.K.D.”, these initials then crossed out and replaced with “C.R.W. Robinson”, a name under which Davis sometimes published.

“Carol of the Drum” appealed to the Austrian Trapp Family Singers, who first brought the song to wider prominence when they recorded it for Decca Records in 1951 on their first album for the label. Their version was credited solely to Davis and published by Belwin-Mills.

In 1957, the song was recorded with an altered arrangement by Jack Halloran for his Jack Halloran Singers on their Dot Records album Christmas Is A-Comin’. This arrangement is the one commonly sung today. However, the recording was not released as a single that year. In response to this, Dot producer Henry Onorati, who left Dot to become the new head of 20th Century-Fox Records in 1958, introduced the song to Harry Simeone. When 20th Century-Fox Records contracted with Simeone to record a Christmas album, Simeone hired many of the same singers that had sung in Halloran’s version and made a near-identical recording with his newly created Harry Simeone Chorale. It was released as a single in 1958, and later on the album, Sing We Now of Christmas, later retitled The Little Drummer Boy. The only difference between Simeone’s and Halloran’s versions, was that Simeone’s contained finger cymbals, and the song’s title had been changed to “The Little Drummer Boy”. Simeone and Onorati claimed and received joint composition credits with Davis, although the two did not actually compose or arrange it. Halloran never received a joint writing credit for the song, something his family disagrees with.

The album and the song were an enormous success, with the single scoring in the top 40 of the U.S. music charts from 1958 to 1962. In 1965, Simeone, who had signed with Kapp Records in 1964, re-recorded a new version of the song for his album O’ Bambino: The Little Drummer Boy. This version was recorded in stereo, had a slightly slower tempo, and contained different-sounding cymbals. Simeone recorded the song a third and final time in 1981, for an album, again titled The Little Drummer Boy, on the budget Holiday Records label.

Harry Simeone’s 1965 version is almost certainly the most widely-known and familiar to the majority of us; even Rip Van Winkle has likely heard that one by now. As much as I’ve always adored “Drummer Boy,” I confess I haven’t heard the Trapp Family’s rendition (yes, THAT Trapp family); in fact, I didn’t even know they’d recorded it, so tragically unhip and out-of-the-loop I am.

Nevertheless, it’s a lovely piece of music, in all its various forms and performative permutations.

The more I read up on the early pop-era standards, the more I have to just sit back in awe and marvel, goggle-eyed and mouth agape, at Mark Steyn’s capacious catalog of “Steynmusic” posts, a great many of which have been excerpted here. The man is a veritable encyclopedia when it comes to the topic, and writes so brilliantly about the music often referred to in show-biz circles as The Great American Songbook. Steyn’s abiding affection for the old chestnuts shines through in every sentence, at times approaching reverence for the songs, the unsung (heh, sorry) composers who wrote them, and the artists who performed and/or recorded them. As gifted a current-affairs/op-ed essayist as he definitely is, I sometimes can’t help thinking that his true calling is as a music critic and historian.

T’was the night before Christmas

And thru the White House
Not a creature was stirring
Not even a louse

An Alt Christmas Carol
The White House, Christmas Eve, 2023. Imagine the painfully lugubrious scene….

“Joe Biden” rattles around in the upstairs “residence” like a BB in a packing crate. Nobody is around besides a few secret service agents, so still at their posts they might as well be statuary. The Big Guy is all alone. His spouse, Dr. Jill, had enough of pretend caretaking quite a while ago, and flew off to Oprah’s place in Santa Barbara for counseling and commiseration. Hunter is Gawd-knows-where doing Gawd-knows-what.

“JB” shuffles out of the residence kitchen, where he just demolished a half gallon of Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream® ice cream, against his doctor’s orders. His gall bladder writhes in revolt, sending a distress signal up the vagus nerve to the shriveled hypothalamus in his brain. A jumbled fugue of emotions — rage, fear, sexual arousal — quickens his step as he navigates by dead reckoning to the executive bedroom where he hurries to bed and falls into leaden slumber — only to be awakened by a cacophony of ringing bells. His eyelids roll open like shades in the windows of a skid row hotel room. Plangent moaning resounds as a mist emerges through the bedroom door and resolves into a mysterious figure garbed in the raiment of the Ku Klux Klan.

“Joe Biden” shrinks under the luxury Boll & Branch signature duvet— acquired when the agriculture minister of Ukraine slipped him an envelope stuffed with 100 hryvnia notes. The spirit wails something that resembles the old Confederate anthem Eatin’ Goober Peas.

“Who are you spirit?” the quaking president asks.

“Why, I am your old pard from the Senate,” the ghost of Robert Byrd declares, removing the pointed hood to reveal his leonine head of hair and scowling face. “Why have you thrown our sacred borders wide open, suh? I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels.”

“Y-y-you don’t uh-uh-understand,” “JB” says, his childhood stutter returning. “They are muh-muh-migrants from oppression and vuh-vuh-very fine people.”

“Fine people, my ass,” the former Senator from West Virginia cries and clears the dust of the sepulcher from his throat. “I will send three spirits to you this night as a review of what has been and what shall become, so beware….” And with that the spirit returns to mist and slips back out through the keyhole…

“Joe Biden” is shocked from slumber again as an attractive blond female ghost floats through the bedroom window.

“Don’t I know you?” he asks.

“Cad! That is the very line you used to pick me up on spring break in Nassau, 1966,” says “JB’s” first wife, Neilia Hunter. “Shall I show you the meretricious spectacle you made of our family after that truck driver on Limestone Road ended my life and your little daughter’s too!”

“No-o-o-o-o,” the president moans, but is magically transported to the Wilmington Hospital room where his banged-up boys, Beau and Hunter, are recovering from their injuries. A TV crew is present as “JB” emotes for the camera, a cruel victim of fate, he blubbers, who will yet conquer his grief and go on to forty years of electoral victories and the sedulous gathering of tribute from “donors” far and wide to soften the blow of his loss. The room dims…

Read on for the other spirit visitations: second being the martyred Saint George of Fentanyl, complete with Neegrow dialect deftly translated from the original ghetto-ese, representing the Ghost Of Christmas Present; Christmas Yet To Come I’ll leave unnamed so as not to spoil the surprise for ya, but take my word for it, t’is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Kunstler uncorks his by no means inconsiderable writerly chops and lets ‘em really soar in this one, and it’s a joy and a wonder to behold.

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Christmas moozik

Borepatch tells us that A) Allison Krause is a national treasure, as is the peerless Yo Yo Ma, and B) this song is, and I quote, “magical.” He is perfectly correct, on all counts.

As it happens, I heard this one over the weekend on the classical music station as I was trying to come up with a reason to drag myself out of bed; it stopped me dead in my tracks, I was helpless to do anything but just lie there and take it in. The haunting melody of this rendition of the traditional Irish carol (VERY Irish, t’is; an orchestral version is here, if you’re interested in comparing and contrasting) may seem a bit, um, mournful for Christmas, which usually brings to mind more merry, celebratory, light-hearted music for most of us.

But no matter; this song is simply gorgeous, the performances stellar, and the arrangement is nothing short of spectacular, a piece of near-divine musical inspiration. Well done to all involved, and thanks to Borepatch for the reminder.

Update! Any overgrown kid out there like meself who just can’t get enough of that Christmas-y stuff is hereby advised to check out a fine, fine live365 stream I’ve had running pretty much continually since I came across it over the weekend: ChristmasFM Classical. After three days, there’ve been precious few duds so far—if any, even, a point which I am not entirely prepared to concede.

Ironically enough in light of the subject matter of another of tonight’s posts, it appears from ChristmasFM’s own website that the station just happens to be based guess where.

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Season’s greetings

Happy Thanksgiving to all CF Lifers: old hands, newbie shavetails, lurkers, skulkers, stalkers, creepers, peepers, fanatics, and freaks. As of right now, I’m declaring the official opening of the Christmas season, my favorite time of year for my whole life long. So how’s about a little music to celebrate the occasion, then?

Rest assured there’ll be lots more Christmas music to come over the next month around here. I absolutely love it, from the beloved old carols in every Christian’s hymnbook, to the classic pop/secular hits which everybody’s heard a blue million times, to the 60’s Christmas TV-special soundtracks. Rock instrumental combos, full orchestras, mass choirs, swing bands, brass choir, men’s-chorus outfits like Chanticleer and Cantus: you name it, I still adore ‘em all, and I always will. And if you’re one of those grumpy professional misanthropes for whom there’s nothing more enjoyable than kvetching and cavilling to all within earshot about how sick and damned tired you are of Christmas music—well, I feel sorry for your miserable ass, and I hope someday you find a palliative for your wretched disgruntlement.

Update! WRSA finds more positive proof that Leftists ruin everything.

WEFThanksgiving

Mmm-mmm-GOOD. Dig in, everybody!

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Publick Notice

Why yes, I have been just sorta stalling, putting off undoing the Coop-O-Ween makeover until the much-anticipated yearly arrival of good ol’ Scrooge Picard, why do you ask?

Actually, what with the Christmas lights already popping up all over the place around these parts, I’m thinking I’ll go ahead and get cracking on the annual CF Christmas conversion, even if it is a bit early still by the traditional standards for such things. Expect screwups, erratic blog behavior, and general kludginess, folks.

Update! Well shoot, that went a lot faster and easier than I thought it would. Now for the neverending process of bug-hunting and repairing…sigh.

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Publick Notice

Yep, it’s a sad, sad day around these parts: no more Scrooge Picard nor Santa Bettie Page, either one. After much thrashing and flailing about, accompanied by some light screaming and pulling out of the hair by the roots, I finally got Angry Guy back up top, and all the colors reset the way I wanted ’em.

Tell your friends, wake the neighbors, send the word far and wide that Christmas is now officially over, as dead as…umm, Marley’s ghost, shall we say. Yes, it’s a bit earlier than I would usually take the CF Xmas theme-makeover down, but I figured it was the least I could do for CF Lifers with bossheads and/or angry wives and/or girlfriends who inexplicably felt nekkid Santa Bettie might have been just a wee bit much, having done the annual holiday rearranging around this here hogwallow earlier than usual this year.

Frankly, I’ve always found this to be the most depressing time of the whole year: the dead of winter; no more cheerful, merry lights and decorations all over the place; nothing to look forward to until early February, when my birthday comes along. And I gotta say, the more I pile up of them, the less there is to look forward to there too. Ah well, I do sincerely hope you all had a wonderful holiday anyhow. If not, here’s a little something to cheer ya up.


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Golden Oldie, revisited

There are basically four universally-beloved animated Christmas TV specials from the mid/late 60s that I’ve looked forward to seeing each year since they originally appeared their, um, advent*: A Charlie Brown Christmas, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (which I wrote about here), Rankin-Bass’s Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (also R-B, actually from 1970). Of these, it was really Rudolph that I loved best of all, and still do. In fact, it’s the only one of the four that I still regard as a must-watch every year.

Now, Rudolph features several really nice songs—Burl Ives singing “Silver And Gold,” to name but one, has become a true staple of the season. Since I seem to have a thing for piano arrangements of the classic Christmas tunes, and since Rudolph has meant so very much to me since my misspent youth…well, I ask you, how could I possibly NOT include this lovely rendition of what in my not-so-humble opinion is the best of a very fine lot from the special, “The Most Wonderful Day Of The Year,” on Christmas Eve?



What a pretty, pretty thing, no? Nice 3/4 time, relaxed waltz-tempo, with a turnaround so achingly beautiful you can almost hear your heart cracking inside your chest from it.

A very merry Christmas to all you CFers and your loved ones, this and every year. In light of the awful situation I was in last Christmas, I consider myself fortunate indeed to have you all along with me for this crazy ride, and can’t even begin to express the depth of my gratitude for that. May your days be merry, and bright.

*Heh; see what I did there? Don’t know how it is I didn’t think of that earlier.

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White man’s burden

The Dark Continent was anything but a peaceful, idyllic paradise well before the first European Whypeepuh ever set foot on the blighted shitpit.

I confess I was quite skeptical about Gilley’s book, given the needlessly incendiary title. Defending German colonialism, given that any story of late 19th and early-20th century German history will inevitably be wrapped up in that country’s condemnable behavior in two world wars, seems a curious intellectual enterprise for a professional academic (and for readers with more liberal sensitivities, it’s likely to be downright offensive). Not only that, but in a time when America’s post-Cold War foreign policy has been defined by constant overreach that has exacerbated various crises (e.g. regional political instability, anti-American Islamic extremism, migration), it seems a bit tone-deaf to be arguing that Western intervention around the world — especially when the West’s power is diminishing — is something to be encouraged.

Nevertheless, regardless of the strength of Gilley’s defense of German colonialism, the story he tells, substantiated by extensive historical documentation, does quite a bit to undermine popular narratives in America about pre-colonial Africa and the African colonial experience. For starters, the peoples inhabiting what would become Germany’s African colonies were far from innocent peoples living in harmony with each other and nature. Human sacrifice was common among at least one of the tribes of Cameroon. Slavery was common across both Namibia (southwest Africa) and what would become the colony of German East Africa (present-day Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, and part of Mozambique).

The Nama and Herero peoples, both of whom had migrated to Namibia only a generation before the Germans (and displaced other indigenous African tribes such as the Damara people in the process), were engaged in bloody, genocidal warfare. In 1850, the Nama massacred a fifth of the Herero population in a single day. The Herero raided native Damara and Saan villages, killing all but the young and strong, whom they exploited as slaves. Many escaped to the Germans. Writes Gilley: “Even if left to their own devices, the Herero and Nama would not have lived in idyllic bliss tending healthy herds of cattle and hosting multiethnic community barbecues.”

Our anti-Western conceptions of colonial Africa are equally misinformed. In 1904, a policy in German East Africa decreed that all children born to slaves beginning in 1906 were free. Moreover, between 1891 and 1912, more than 50,000 slaves in the colony were freed by legal, social, and financial means. By 1920, slavery had virtually been eradicated from the region.

German East Africa was also environmentally conscious, codifying laws prohibiting unlicensed elephant hunting and creating the first game reserves. It promoted education by natives: By 1910, there were more than 4,000 students in state schools. “The Germans have accomplished marvels,” noted a 1924 British report on local education initiatives. The education system in German colonies provided instruction in local histories, cultures, and geographies, as well as technical subjects common in German curricula. Because of this, local language media prospered. “German transformed Swahili from a coastal language of Muslim elites to the lingua franca for the future country of Tanzania,” writes Gilley.

The Germans provided free and accessible medical care for many Africans. They engaged in extensive agricultural and infrastructure projects in Namibia, including roads, railways, water holes, and port facilities. A German scientist developed a vaccine that saved native cattle from a catastrophic illness. The Germans built a 1,250-kilometer railway linking Lake Tanganyika to Dar es Salaam, which to this day “remains the lifeblood of Tanzania’s economy and of Zambia’s trans-shipment traffic.” Economies previously based on slavery transitioned to coffee.

Africa’s most insuperable problem remains the same as it always has been: the horrid place is full of Africans.

But what, you ask, does Africa have to do with the recently-manufactured-from-whole-(kente) cloth “holiday” Kwanzaa? Why, not one single, solitary thing, natch.

Spanning from Dec. 26 to the first of January is Kwanzaa, the invented African American holiday celebrated solely by white liberals and clueless public school teachers. Overblown by leftist claiming the holiday has immense cultural significance, a survey by the National Retail Foundation discovered only 1.6 percent of Americans celebrate Kwanzaa.

The “holiday” was created in 1966 by Ron Karenga, who renamed himself Maulana. Karenga, the founder of the United Slaves, a violent rival organization to the Black Panthers, created the holiday for black Americans and derived the name “Kwanzaa” from the Swahili phrase “matunda y kwanza,” meaning “first fruits of the harvest.” That’s about the extent of the deep African roots the official Kwanzaa website claims.

Guess the extra “a” in Karenga’s dimwitted misspelling lends it extra authenticity. Or, y’know, something. Oh, and do be sure to thank the Germans, Ronnie, for bringing you the Swahili tongue you’re misspeaking, fool.

The history of the holiday and Karenga has been seamlessly suppressed by leftists who find the facts inconvenient. Since few know its origins, the current definitions of the celebration are usually nonsensical and made up, much like the holiday itself.

FrontPage Magazine’s Paul Mulshine writes that “the history of the founder of Kwanzaa has disappeared into an Orwellian time warp.” Indeed, CNN informs readers that Kwanzaa’s violent, racist founder was “a black nationalist and professor of Pan-African studies at California State University at Long Beach,” omitting his criminal and misogynistic past.

Karenga is currently a black studies professor at California State University, Long Beach where the administration is apparently untroubled by the fact that this radical racist is also a convicted torturer of women. Despite the troubling past of Kwanzaa’s founder, leftists continue to shove this fake holiday down America’s throat every Christmas.

Yeah, well, fuck them all to Hell and gone, as always. That said, what Kwanzaa celebration would be complete without a stinking-blotto Granny Boxwine slurring and slobbering her way around the stupid fucking word?


Heh. Well said, ya haggard old soak.

5

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