Todd Stadler's blog

[untitled #463]

While visiting Girlfriend Julia's family's house in Houston, I came across a bottle in the shower that contained the following copy:

"Original dandruff fighting anti-dandruff shampoo for the control of dandruff with regular use"

Um, but what does it do?

rudolph revealed

It's generally acknowledged that there is no cheaper form of humor than the line-by-line mockery, and at this economically depressed time, I can afford nothing more. So it is that I present to you Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer revisited. Ho ho ha ha ho!

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen
Comit and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen

This is some sort of prologue, I suppose. The tone is a bit haughty, as if to say, "Oh, sure, I guess there's these eight reindeer who happen to fly and oh did I mention they've pulled Santa's sleigh for who-knows-how-many years, but what do you care in this cult of personality world we live in? So much for teamwork!"

And hadn't the author heard of the marvelous time-saving device that is the comma? "And" "and" "and"! At least Clement Moore used more than one word to pad his reindeer roll call into meter!

By the way, for those of you who don't know German, donder and blitzen mean "thunder" and "lightning". I bet nobody wanted to be the reindeer flying behind Donder.

Anyhow, I find it peculiar that none of these guys gets referenced by name in the rest of the song. It's as if Chaucer had started his general prologue to the Canterbury Tales with "thar was a Knight, and a Nonne, and a Monk, and a Cooke, and a Squyer, etc., etc." and then went on to tell thirty stories about the village idiot.

But do you recall
The most famous reindeer of all?

I suppose when this song was first penned, that might have been a legitimate question.

Maybe somehow the tale of Rudolph had been lost in the mists of time. Maybe kids in those days just talked in voices dripping with ennui about those eight workaday reindeer with completely uninteresting noses.

But it's all fairly moot now. When you've been in a TV special featuring Burl "Celebrity" Ives, you've been burned into the national consciousness, don't you know.

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer
Had a very shiny nose

Shiny nose. Red. Got it.

And if you ever saw it
You would even say it glows

You know, the author sure is going into an awful lot of detail about the nose. Shiny, red, glows in the dark. Fine. We spent a whole verse talking about the nose. I'm sure it was breathtaking, but let's move on, right?

All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games

Well, it's obvious what's happening here. Rudolph is "poor" and ostracized from the bourgeoisie, who openly mock him in his poverty, denying him access to any form of enjoyment, and, one presumes, the means of production.

And is it any coincidence, then, that Rudolph's nose is red? Do I have to spell it out for you?

Then one foggy Christmas eve
Santa came to say

Oh ho! Who comes along to save our sad prole but a man also bedecked in red and wearing a long beard not unlike economic wunderkind Karl Marx!

This, then, must be some sort of allegory in which the capitalist state is smashed — on a religious holiday, no less, in order to free the people of their mind-numbing mental shackles, eh comrade?

"Rudolph with your nose so bright
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?"

I will pause my socialist tirade for a moment to ask why Santa hadn't thought of this before.

Was Rudolph new to town? Had all previous Christmas Eves been nice and clear, obviating the need for a luminescent nose?

Is asking for a logical, cohesive narrative in my festive happy-time tunes too much? No wonder children are so dumb when they are fed tripe like this!

Then how the reindeer loved him
And they shouted out with glee

Okay, now hold the phone here! That's it?

Santa has a little talk with Rudolph, who hasn't even said yes, and now all the reindeer are kissing up to Rudolph? Talk about brown-nosed reindeer!

Clearly, this is meant as a condemnation of capitalist Europe's (the eight reindeer's) nominal acceptance of socialism (that is, Rudolph), cheering it on in public but privately loathing its Johnny-come-tardiness to the world of economic theory.

And just as this song has, from the beginning, eschewed wasting much time on these sycophantic eight, so we should look anywhere besides Europe for true leadership in the world, eh comrade?

"Rudolph the red-nosed reinder
You'll go down in history"

Great, now they're all historians, too. What a disappointing end to a song that had so much allegorical potential to teach us about the evils of capitalism!

And what a disappointing end to this journal entry.

party hardy

What's that? You have no plans for New Year's? Well then, you're invited to our party.

Or at least to read our invitation:

Hi, I'm Todd Stadler. You may remember me from such parties as Halloween 2001: Get Your Fright On and St. Patrick's Day 2002: McDrinky's Revenge. I'm here to tell you about an important opportunity. But first, a word from our sponsor.

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E-mail operators are standing by.

Hi, Todd again. As many of you know, there is a severe shortage of partying in our land. Weekend after weekend, young people go without even so much as bowl of cheese dip and an early 80s tune. But it gets worse.

I have seen college educated people on the streets begging for someone to do a shot with them. I have even seen them roving from office Christmas party to office Christmas party in an attempt to somehow fend off the gnawing emptiness they feel inside.

Friends, we can't let this happen! We have to think of the children!

But there is something we can do. We can show the people of Portland there is hope. For the price of attendance in your funkiest clothes, plus maybe your favorite alcohol, you can prevent the people of this city from going party-hungry.

This New Year's Eve, party for the people. You'll be glad you did.

Who: You and yours and us and them
Where: The Pribush
When: December 31, 2002 9pm until it hurts
What: Rage, rage against the dying of the year
What else: Bring some alcohol for good luck

annoying addendum

Based on the research I did for the previous article, I just visited Am I Annoying's most and least annoying ranking.

I just thought it was interesting that, as of this writing, Jesus and God were the least annoying celebrities, whereas Benny Hinn and Paul and Jan Crouch were the most annoying.

If you watch TBN, you'll understand.

lawyers on parade!

Once again, I find myself thinking "Parade Magazine: now more than ever!"

And no, I'm not talking about the hard-hitting journalism that is this week's J.Lo cover story.

(Though of course, I hope against hope along with the Parade editors and the rest of the civilized world that "the stars are smiling on" J.Lo and B.Af. Third time's a charm.)

No, I'm talking about Parade Magazine once again showing why it is "the class-action lawsuit advertisement paper of record".

For as I was flipping through all 28 ad-riddled pages in an attempt to find out what philosophical minutiae the world's "Highest IQ" was forced to waste her brain cells on this week, a headline in an advertisement caught my eye:

"If You Purchased Prerecorded Music on Compact Discs, Cassettes or Vinyl Albums from January 1, 1995 through December 22, 2000 Please Read This Legal Notice" (Man, I Love Title Case)

I mean, to whom does that not apply? There may be some caveman up in Alaska or something, but even he probably has some Dixie Chicks tapes or whatever, right?

The ad went on to talk about a lawsuit brought against a slew of major music companies for conspiring to keep prices for recorded music high.

I hear you say, "*gasp* No!", so I say, "yes!" right back at you. Go read the details yourself at the official Web site for the suit.

Yes, instead of paying $18 or more for the new Garth Brooks CD, you could have paid a more reasonable $15 or something, had these companies not been so greedy.

Of course, you could have just waited a few months and paid $4 when you picked it up in the overstock bin at the used CD store, but hey. Your choice.

"Fine fine fine," you say, "but what's going to happen to the major record labels?"

Well, according to the settlement, no CD should ever cost more than $10, so for every CD you bought in the time period specified, they will refund you any amount over $10 that you paid, even if you don't have the receipts.

Additionally, the labels agreed to divest themselves of any businesses that may pose a conflict of interest such as radio stations and concert venues.

Furthermore, the major record labels must agree to stop any effort that hinders fair use, including manufacturing "copy-protected" CDs and prohibiting MP3 creation, as well as shutting down file-sharing entities. Upon request, they will e-mail you the MP3s for any album you own.

Finally, the music industry agreed to end its focus on one-hit "superstar" acts, acknowledging that acts with a more local focus and more artistic freedom tend to produce music that is superior.

Ha ha ha, you should have seen your face when you started reading through all that dreck! Of course it's all been a lie since you said "fine fine fine". Teach you to rush me through my story!

Anyhow, the real settlement to this suit involves splitting $67,375,000 between everyone in the class.

Oh, and $75,700,000 "worth" of CDs to be distributed according to population to every blessed state in the union.

I say "worth" because I can't find out who gets to define how much a CD is worth. Is it the $1 it costs to make? Ho ho. Or is it the $15 (on a nice day) that the music industry is being sued for setting in this self-same lawsuit? People are stupid, so I'm going with the latter.

That works out to be 5 million CDs or so, of which 4 million are probably Ace of Base and 4 Non Blondes, I figure. All going to non-profit agencies to, what, make art projects or drink coasters out of? I don't know.

"Wait," you say, but hopefully with a little more respect this time, "what about the $67 million in cash that everybody gets to split?"

Great, focus on the money, not the music. Just like the record companies. You're part of the problem, see?

Anyhow, all that cash gets split up among the people who file a form indicating that they agree to be part of the settlement.

But it's obvious the lawyers fighting "for us" (that is, those lawyers whose greedy tendencies do not favor the music industry) stink.

Because they, in their legal wisdom, decided that for all the CDs you've bought, resulting in hundreds of your dollars of paying for Justin Timberlake's ego addiction, you should get between $5 and $20. Once.

Here's the clever part. The more people you tell about this settlement, the less you will get paid. If more than 13,475,000 people file a claim (which would mean less than $5 a claimant), nobody gets paid, and some non-profit organization gets your cash. I assume that it will not be the adult contemporary division of Capitol Records, Inc.

So go ahead and file your claim and maybe you'll get a check that's big enough to buy 1/3 of a new CD sometime next year. And when you cash that check, step back for a moment to ponder how justice has been served, and the little guy has won. And by little guy, I mean Tommy Mottola.

[untitled #462]

Hmm... Bill Maher has a new book out entitled When You Ride Alone You Ride With bin Laden, a phrase that appeared over a year ago on Cock-a-hoop.

And what do you know, the book tries to be funny while railing against the government and media. Mmm-hmm.

What do want to bet that if I check my server logs, there will be lots of entries for billmaher.tv?

incident alley

I went to see Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets today with some friends.

After the film, my friend Doug (who is a bit of a movie buff) noted that his ribs were sore, as if John Williams had been nudging him all through the movie.

Too true.

Incidentally, I heard that it was originally titled Harry Potter and the Chamber of Racism, but that that came across as a bit heavy handed.

That said, I still rather enjoyed myself.