Christmas Rant #1

"It's coming on Christmas, they're chopping down trees, putting up angels, singing songs of joy and peace."

Mostly bad ones.

Ok, I'm no Grinch when it comes to Christmas Music; I have a large pile of it myself. My problem is that every pop star idiot of the day thinks that they can and should make one. And most of them suck. Seriously, is anyone digging out their Mariah Carey Christmas disk and playing it year after year? I doubt it.

What really galls me is when you have some dubious talent (you know who you are Billy Idol, LeeAnn Rimes, Donna Summer, etc) take on a classic like 'White Christmas'.

Come on, Bing Crosby OWNS this song. It's burned into our brains. Your lame ass cover is not adding anything to it. It is an unwritten law that if you can't add anything to the original when you cover a song, you should not cover it at all.

With that in mind, here my list of xmas tunes that are already owned:

• White Christmas - Bing Crosby
  
• Blue Christmas - Elvis
  
• The Christmas Song - Nat King Cole
  

Ok, so there are TONS of songs that can be improved upon. Pick one of those. Seriously. Ever hear a version of 'Holly and the Ivy" that really worked? I didn't think so.

Christmas Songs I Hate
Santa Baby - Ick. A paean to greed.
The 12 Days of Christmas - I hear that they use this for torture purposes down at Guantanamo.

Holiday disks that I like:


Louis Armstrong - What a Wonderful Christmas
Zat you Santa Claus?

Asylum Street Spankers - A Christmas Spanking
Good silliness.

The Chieftains - The Bells of Dublin
Worth it for 'The Saint Stephen's Day Murders' (with Elvis Costello) alone.

Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas
What needs to be said?

Kristen Hersh - The Holy Single
What are the holidays without a little angst?



Aimee Mann - Another Drifter in the Snow
Aimee Mann did a Christmas album?!? Yeah, and it is surprisingly traditional and great where it isn't.

Dean Martin - Christmas with Dino
Dino has a great voice for the Xmas standards. His version of 'Baby its cold outside' is positively leacherous.

Leon Redbone - Christmas Island
The baritone is in fine form here. 'There's no place like home for the holidays' has never been done better. Hey, he even makes 'Frosty the Snowman' not suck, and that is saying something.

(various)- Blue Yule
Christmas aint all jolly; this is great when you get the blues.


[Apology to those who receive my annual e-mail based Christmas Rant - Yes, this is a retread topic.]

Throwing Beer Around

So Chris and I got together Sunday night to move 20 gallons of homebrew into kegs and secondary.

I spent a good chunk of Saturday breaking down and cleaning Corny kegs in preparation. There were a few scary ones in the batch--stuff left over from last spring turning funky at the bottom. Nothing that a long soak in B-Brite and a hit of Iodophor couldn't cure.

Because we split the last batch of stout into two (one a Chocolate Stout, the other a 'Mayan' themed one with Cinnamon, Vanilla Beans, and a Habanero pepper floating in the secondary). and we both wanted some of each, that meant cleaning and sanitizing four corny kegs.

Both tasted great going into the kegs. The Chocolate is a keeper recipe that I brew a couple of times a year. The Mayan was Samira's inspiration and was really interesting. The spices totally melded with the Chocolate malt and it was difficult to tell what was really in there. The habanero gave the slightest warming at the back of your throat. Very cool combination.

On top of the kegging, we moved the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale Clone from Primary to Secondary and dry hopped each 5 gal carboy with 2+ ounces of a mix of Chinook, Centennial and Cascade. It tasted awesome going into the Secondary. This baby should be ready right at the Solstice. I'm getting psyched about it.

All in all, a great night, but way too much cleaning.

Brewin'

Wow, has it really been since July since I last posted? Yikes.

So what have I been doin'? Brewin'.

Now that it is fall and we have acceptable fermenting temperatures in the house, my friend Chris and I have been cranking out a ten gallon batch of beer every two weeks. There's five varieties in the works and I can finally show my face again at the brew club meetings.

By the way, the Brown Porter kicks ass!