Fantasy Vs Reality: Christmas Edition!
[Note: There are no other editions. Yet.]
Fantasy: Jesus of Nazareth was born on December 25th.
Reality: Not so much. It is a time that Christians celebrate his birth, but there’s no references to an actual calendar date. Even hard-core Christians admit that there is more pagan about the celebrations than Christian, and what celebrations there are belong to the Catholics(the word ‘Christmas’ refers directly to the Catholic Mass of the Christ). So give a Jehovah’s Witness a high five on this one. Just don’t give him/her a present.
Fantasy: Coca-Cola is responsible for the modern-day image of Santa.
Reality: That image was already around; they just used it because he was red and white, just like their logo. Coca-Cola’s widespread, universal marketing machine did distribute the image further than it has ever been, though, and with the elbow grease of corporate advertising muscle that red and white fat bastard was everywhere. They get a pass on Santa Claus. Blame them for this…
Reality: Christmas of 1986 was the worst one my nuclear family endured; my Grandpa Carney was flown to St. Francis Hospital, in Tulsa, OK, for quadruple bypass surgery.
Fantasy: I was ten, and it was Christmas, and I feel like even though I knew it was a real hardship I remember having a great time. We got to stay the night with my mom’s friends, Sandy and Mike. The Christmas displays in Tulsa kicked the dirty asses of the Christmas lights in West Fork. The hospital was huge and pink(pink!), and me and two pockets full of Go-Bots wandered around the stairways and waiting rooms, staging battle after battle; I’m sure every banister was covered in paint transfer and every arm rest was covered in spittle from my incessant laser niosemaking.
To hear the story now, in hindsight, it is terribly depressing: my parents having to leave my grandpa behind to go back to work, needing the money after already spending some on presents; the only way my grandpa could communicate was by writing notes on paper; mother having to lug my baby brother around because she was still nursing him. But there’s nothing like a ten-year-old brain to have filtered all of that out.
Fantasy: “Hard Candy Christmas” is paralyzingly depressing.
Reality: “Hard Candy Christmas” is sung by whores. In a movie about whores.
“Hard Candy Christmas” was the emotional rebound/resolution of the conflict of relationship for the third act of the musical, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. The original version(the cut from the movie is provided at the end of this post) has the versus sang by different girls, with Miss Mona, the role played by Dolly, singing the sorta-more-uplifting chorus. Kinda sad, kinda sweet. Better than most songs sung by whores.
When Dolly sang it herself, though, and it’s her voice singing all the different scenarios, there is an uncertainty about the state of the speaker; in the play she only says that she’ll be “fine and dandy”, but in the single released by Dolly she embodies all the different choices, some aloof, some maudlin and depressing.
Consider this emotional change-up with the fact that “Hard Candy Christmas” was the first single Dolly Parton released after her heart-smashing mega hit, “I Will Always Love You”. Two in a row of contemplative soul searchers made it easy to forget the roots of the song and the original character of the speaker/speakers of the lyrics. If your hard candy gets too soft thinking about this song,go back to the whore house. That’s what they’re there for.
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