Something Wicked This Way Comes! It's Chrimbo!

Something wicked this way comes! The Jolly Fat Man cometh! Dark foreboding popped round last night and chapped my door. Dread waved to me in the street. The sound of jingling grows louder!Time is merciless - Christmas is upon us!

Now, those of you out there who regularly perambulate the labyrinthine backstreets, skulk furtively along the  twisted alleyways or sift the brimming gutters of the Tinternet-Super-Highway may recognise that it's usually round about now that the S t O N e  d H o L y b L o g g E R posts a wearisome and jaded paragraph or two berating the tawdry assault on the senses, the gaudy spendathon  that Chrimbo has mutated into in the hands of our corporate masters! This year will be no different!

For there have been no Damascene moments of Revelation since last the malevolent Christmas pixies were badgering me to join in the fun! That skinny little runt, our Stoned Holy Bro' of Yore, Hank Williams, may have Seen the Light but I sure as hell ain't! Mr. Williams, it must be pointed out, was an Alabama boy steeped in Pentecostalism and soaked in the kinda spirit available in bottles!

Meanwhile, there have been no late night visitations to the Stoned Holy Bed Chamber by spirits, no excursions to Chrimbos past, present or future. That Scrooge geezer may have seen the error of his ways but the S t O N E D h O L y B L o g g e R is the same crabbit, auld misery guts as ever he was! I will most definitely not be sending any rosy cheeked little scamp on an errand to buy the biggest turkey in the shop!

Roy Wood may well have wished that 'It Could Be Christmas Every Day' but if that were to actually happen the suicide rate would rocket, I wager! Droves of exhausted consumers and spiritually corrupted shoppers would be throwing themselves merrily from the upper tiers of the shopping malls! But how infantile a thing to wish for in the first place. If it was Chrimbo every day then it wouldn't be 'special', would it?  It would merely be yet another dull, lifeless inch on the empty road to nowhere we are all treading! Anyway, it has to pointed out that Mr. Wood liked a bottle of vodka for breakfast everyday and had a large silver star painted on his forehead, so his views on anything must surely be suspect!

But the Chrimbo juggernaut rumbles on. Crushing good taste beneath its merciless wheels. Flattening the dawdling hedgehogs of reserve and modesty as they attempt to cross the Chrimbo highway! On and on it thunders with it's stinking exhaust pipe spewing forth a noxious mix of choking gases which burn the lungs, leave a bitter taste in the mouth and empty your bank account! In its wake it leaves an alcohol drenched trail of bitterness and loneliness that leads all the way to the landfill. And it's the landfill site where all the collected crackpot wackiness and assorted ridiculous religious guff that form the Chrimbo ether in the minds of fools who are easily parted from their paltry wages manifest themselves and are formed into actual stuff. And what stuff!!  A towering, festering mountain of the ersatz and kitsch, the shoddy and fake, unasked for and unrequired! What better monument to Chrimbo's black, cynical heart than a monumental midden of worthless plastic shit....and no matter how much you polish shit, it never looks clean!!

B'jaysus, I need to cheer up! Time to self-medicate, I feel. Pass the Egg-Nog, Henry!! See youz all when it's over....meanwhile there will no quarter given, no clemency offered! It's everyone for themselves! It's not often the S t O n e d H O L y b L o G G e r  gets to compare himself with Beyoncé but we are both 'Survivors'!!

CRAZY ARMS

Yes, I know, I said I wisnae poppin' ma Stoned Holy Heid above the parapet until Chrimbo had shot it's materialistic bolt or fizzled oot in a dyspeptic and alcoholic fug but the snell blasts of December have blown in some Blue Notes & Black News for aw us hiding oot n cloistered here at Stoned Holy HQ! Sad Tidings not Glad Tidings!
Not 'A King is Born' but 'A King is Dead! Ray Price, King of the Honky Tonks is Deid!!

I was loathe tae emerge frae under the Stoned Holy Bedspread this morning, detecting a distinct chill in the air, not by reading the plummeting thermometer but by the tried n tested methodology of stickin' a foot out of the aforementioned bedpsread's cosy embrace..but Ray Price is Deid!..so Ah felt obliged tae haul ma sorry carcass up outta bed just so as I could pen a few lines : not to mourn his passing - we aw peg oot eventually after all! - but to salute the man and his music, which has a hallowed berth in the cockles of the Stoned Holy Heart and on the Stoned Holy Juke-Box!!

Ahm no here, people, tae tell yi how he boarded n boozed wi Hank Williams and, after life had leaked out of Hank in the back of the cadillac on Highway 31, he inherited his band The Drifting Cowboys and blah blah blah.....or detail how Ray Price took country music by the scruff of it's red n sunburnt neck and rocked it like never before with a beat they called The Ray Price Shuffle....or tell of how he then went on to redefine Country Music for a second time with the orchestral arrangements of 'Countrypolitan'.....no, ahm just here tae doff ma hat in acknowledgement of a Stoned Holy Roller gone before us; a man who's place at the very top o the heap in the midden that is Country Music has been unjustly filled by the likes of  the pompous showbiz excess of Garth 'too fat to fly' Brooks or the ridiculous mythologising, nay canonisation, surrounding Johnny 'flat as a pancake' Cash !! Not good enough tae shine Ray's cowboy boots, neither of them!!

Anyway, being an avowed atheist, this small tribute shall be free of claptrap about how he's gone to a better place or he's looking down on us from Hillbilly Heaven - I'll leave those cliches tae others. It matters not a jot that Ray Price is singing with the angels. But, please join us, here at  Stoned Holy HQ, in raising a glass tae a man who's contribution to Country Music, the true Red Dirt Soul of America, is immeasurable. Let's remember Ray at his very best, with the Cherokee Cowboys behind him and that big, booming baritone singing songs of heartbreak and longing like few others before or after!! "Now Blue Ain't the Word for the Way that I Feel...."


 

Ray Price 1926 - 2013

SWEEP IT AWAY!!

Oft times, as he plods the hard, concrete pavements of this world, the S T o n e D H o L y r O L L e R   will pass an idle moment wondering why it is he feels the need to refer to himself in the 3rd Person!! At other times, when the
S t o n e d H o l y B r a i n B o x  is unconcerned with things Grammatical, the more sharp-eared pedestrian may hear the phrase "O, the Times - O, the Manners"  emanating from the S t o n e d H o l y M o u t h H o l e ! Such is the lot of the 3-Eyed Man adrift in times he was not fashioned for!!

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Just today, as I sat spooning the last of my cappucino foam into my gobhole & admiring the fetlocks of the waitress, I happened to pick up a newspaper - This Was A Mistake!! It was also dangerous, for I had left the cosseted Sanctuary of S t o n e d H o l y   H Q  without drawing up contingency plans regarding what to do in the event of finding one's  S t o n e d H o l y S e l f n e s s  profoundly overwhelmed with the feeling of being trapped in a Great Big Barrel of the Brown Stuff without the means to extricate oneself from it! Usually, when events overtake me and Intimations of Impotency creep up on me, I  pop a disc into the old c.d player and listen to Hank Williams singing "I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive" and receive life-affirming succour from the sound of Hank's voice & the ethereal stylings of Don Helms on the E6 neck of his pedal steel. This option though, was not available to me, due in no small part to my being an avowed technophobe and not having a smart phone and a pair of ear plugs at the ready. Bravely, I sallied forth into the uncharted waters of Page Two and read on!......

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It wasn't after more than a few seconds that my heckles were up, my pulsebeat had rocketted up to 140b.p.m and the S t o n e d H o l y B l o o d  was at boiling point! For it seems, Cyberfriends, that the Lunatics are well & truly in charge of the local Sanitorium!! And here's a snippet or two for why : First off was the news that President Obama has upped the budget for his 'drone war' on Pakistan. He must think it's paying dividends!. If incinerating mosques & bakeries and killing up to 3,000 civilians, including nearly 200 children means the strategy is working out fine for him & the Murderous Military Machine whose interests he serves then so be it n here's to his 2nd Term in Office.....of course, where it really sickens yi tae the pit o yir gut is when you remember that Mr. Obama has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize!!! Hey Ho, Gentle Reader, Hey Ho.....

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Next to catch my attention was Mr. Michael Gove ; who you may know as our present Secretary of State for Education but I know as an Uneducated Fool from an Educated School......as well as a Chinless,  Brainless & Odious Little Tory Runt!! It seems he was up before the Levenson Enquiry lecturing them on the importance of press freedom and delivering a speech full of praise for his one time boss at 'The Times', upright citizen' and all round Good-Fella Rupert Murdoch!! A great man' according to the chinless wonder!
This is the same incompetent who thought putting a copy of the King James Bible in every school in England & Wales would sort out a lot of the problems facing our beleaguered education system!! Talk about Finger-on-the-Pulse!! Just a teensy-weensy bit out of touch, what,what??.....Meanwhiles he's thinking of taking a victory for the Tories in the next General Election to be a mandate to run state schools for profit!?!?.......of course, up here in Scotland we've got our own Education System (funnily enough, it's the one that 'educated Mr. Gove!!) but I do hope that in the event of the Tories being returned for a second term in office, we will have severed our ties with Her Majesty's Sinking Ship Westminster!! I HAVE A DREAM!!.... 
  

I   N   D   E   P   E  N   D   E   N   C   E   !   !   !

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Whilst we're on the subject of abandoning the Good Ship Britannia we have to mention the Jubilee. The acid burn of bile at the back of the S t o n e d H o l y C r a w  is, at this point, Burnin' Something Awful but for you, good Republican Citizens, I soldier on! You will remember that all this feverish hammering of the keys was elicited by my having inadvertently opened a newspaper; well, it was when the little section detailing the cost of the monarchy fell out onto the table that I had to abandon any attempt at Urbane, Metropolitan Cafe Culture and Run to the City of Refuge that is
S t o n e d H o l y H Q, where I can fulminate as is my wont & pepper my Expostulations with as many expletives as I see fit without fear of being forcibly restrained & shipped off to the Funny Farm and a course of E.C.T!! I'll not bore you here with the full financial break down & pie charts itemising the cost of flying a wee auld woman all over the globe with a few hangers-on just so that she can wave at people (here's a wee link if you want to subject yirsel tae the full itemised horror of the bill!!! God Bless Ya, Ma'am! ) but I will add that the cost is immaterial anyway. One Royal Penny would be too much for something that Belittles and Infantilises us to the degree that it it does. Let us not forget that this woman is on State Benefits and has a large family of feckless spongers who, quite clearly, have no intention of getting a job!! Personally, I think the money they've poured into their little propaganda shindig of flotillas down the Thames & concerts outside Buckingham Palace & Equestrian Events & Parades of Pomp in a time of financial austerity for the rest of us is an affront!! We're All In This Together?? YOU'RE HAVIN' A FUCKIN' LAUGH, AINCHA!?!?! 

As a failed Pop Slopper, it's true, I have only the perverse pleasure that is Schadenfreude to tickle my Twisted & Embittered fancy, but that's not the only reason that I say I do hope it fuckin' pisses down on their sad parade on Tuesday ;
It is in my resolute belief in Republicanism and steadfast adherence to that guiding tenet of Socialism that All Are Born Equal that I reject the ridiculous pantomime and bloated high camp farce of their shameful display. I reject their gaudy & tinselled procession, their tawdry & tacky show. I refute their outdated & absurd claim to privilige & entitlement and say unto thee it's time to Sweep All This Garbage Into The Historical Trashcan Where It Belongs!! 

I must remember to stop reading newspapers....unless I've had my medication......pint of 80/- please Landlord!