Le Revolution 21 podcast n'existe plus

The Revolution 21 podcast is toast. Done dealin'. Finished. Gone. Gesphincto.

Adios, au revoir, auf wiederhesen . . . good night!

The reason there's no new edition of the Big Show posted tonight is because there's no Big Show no mo'. Sorry about that. But the show could not go on.

AFTER ALL, what do you think of when you hear about the "Revolution 21 podcast"? You picture some disheveled crank spewing revolutionary rhetoric into a microphone plugged into his computer in some odd corner of his house. Or, alternatively, getting suspicious looks from the other patrons at Starbucks.

Well . . . I'm here to tell you that it's time for me to nip that pretty much spot-on conception you have of me and the podcast right in the bud. So I'm killing that sucker dead. Bang! (Thud.)

The Big Show needed to transcend podcastery. And it couldn't. It couldn't even draw a fraction of the audience of a podcast that consists of nothing but scratchy-ass old LPs . . . period. And in that case, why try harder?

Not for a friggin' podcast, that's for damn certain.

Goodbye.

WELL, THAT FELT REALLY GOOD . . . in a spiteful, embittered sort of way.

But you're not rid of your Mighty Favog that flippin' easily. He's not that bright . . . or in touch with sheer practicality. Actually, he's more in touch with his inner Don Quixote.

And that's why, though the Revolution 21 podcast is deader than a doornail (or than the Geneva Conventions are to the Bush Administration), the Big Show is just morphing into something else pretty damned similar.

Something that doesn't call itself a "podcast." And is a little bit longer. And has a snappier name. And has a weekly companion program that's just the right length for checking out during your morning commute or lunch break. Or whenever.

But they're not podcasts. They're the future of radio . . . at least a future where radio doesn't suck. Kind of like public radio, but without the anthropology lecture by the professor wearing one black shoe and one brown shoe, and this annoying damn blob of two-hour-old oatmeal on his beard which, fortunately, you can't see because it's radio.

SO . . . NEXT WEEK, stay tuned for Revolution 21's new long-form program, 3 Chords & the Truth, and its really brand-new, bite-sized Four Songs (which is exactly what the name tells you).

They'll be right here, same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

The $389,000 question

The Archdiocese of Omaha just wrapped up its 2007 annual appeal, "Feed My Sheep." I don't know how the sheep are making out in the archdiocese this year, but it looks like the shepherd's doing just fine.

ABOVE, you see the house Archbishop Elden Francis Curtiss will shuffle about in during his retired-prelate dotage, whenever the Vatican gets around to accepting his recent required resignation upon turning 75. The archdiocese bought the house in early December, reportedly a case of "just planning ahead," as an archdiocesan official told the Omaha World-Herald.

Make that $389,000 worth of lodging forethought, to be exact.

I realize that purchase price might not raise eyebrows on the West Coast or in the Northeast. But here in Omaha, Neb., $389,000 for a 1,500 square-foot residence in an average, 1950s-vintage neighborhood gets your attention right quick.

PARTICULARLY WHEN the house was assessed in 2006 at $139,100 and sold that autumn for $155,500. Those owners, according to the newspaper, then added to the structure and made other "extensive renovations that included a front porch plus new plumbing, electrical and heating and cooling work."

Which, we are supposed to believe, makes the house worth $230,000 more than the owners, an Omaha real-estate couple, paid for the archbishop's new digs. Who does that kind of massive flip-renovation when the housing market is headed south?

That is, unless they absolutely, positively know they have a buyer who'll pay big money for a radically upgraded, formerly average house in a squishy real-estate market. That's a lot of questions, and the World-Herald doesn't have many answers . . . yet:

The two-bedroom, ranch-style house is at 1024 Sunset Trail, in the Dillon's Fairacres neighborhood, northwest of Memorial Park. It's near 61st Street and Western Avenue, eight blocks from the archdiocese's headquarters offices at 62nd and Dodge Streets.

The Sunset Trail house was purchased Dec. 4 by the Catholic archbishop of Omaha for $389,000, according to Douglas County records. Thursday, an Able Locksmith employee was working on the house. An archdiocesan security pickup was parked behind the locksmith's van.

The house is planned to be Curtiss' retirement residence, said the Rev. Joseph Taphorn, chancellor of the Omaha archdiocese. He said archdiocesan savings were used to buy the house.

(snip)

For Curtiss, the chancellor said, archdiocese officials "were looking around for some time for something near the chancery."

The Sunset Trail house fits the archbishop's needs for a retirement residence and also is an investment for the future after he no longer needs it, Taphorn said.

The one-story house, built in 1954, has two bedrooms and one bathroom, according to Douglas County Assessor's Office records. Those records say the house has 1,562 square feet of space, but it's unclear whether that includes an addition added by the previous owners, Mari and Jeff Rensch.

ASSUMING THAT the house is, indeed, worth what the archdiocese paid for it -- and that it happens to be a decent "investment" when the nation's housing bubble has popped spectacularly -- we still are faced with a large and pertinent question here. To wit: "What the HELL?"

Exactly how much house does an old bachelor need? Particularly an old bachelor whose job it is to be a shepherd, worrying more about his flock than how sumptuous his new digs might be.

Particularly a man entrusted by God to care for the poor, educate the young in the faith and provide the sacraments to all the faithful in his archdiocese. And particularly during a time when the archdiocese for which he is responsible -- for a while longer, at least -- is short of priests, is shuttering parishes and is seeing its social services stretched by rising numbers of the homeless, the hungry and the addicted.

Would it be too much to expect that the soon-to-be-retired archbishop might wish to find a modest house near a shorthanded parish and spend his remaining years simply serving the people of God and reveling in the simple joy of such humble communion?

I guess it would.

IN THIS CITY, there are plenty of nice digs -- nice digs in nice neighborhoods . . . even nice condos downtown -- to be had for lots less than the $389,000 the archdiocese is spending on Curtiss' future residence. Excuse me, make that $389,000 of other people's hard-earned money the archdiocese is spending on Curtiss' future old-bachelor pad.

I may be cast into the fiery furnace for saying so, but I don't see how turning "Feed My Sheep" into "Pimp My House" has a damned thing to do with good stewardship of the archbishop's flock's tithed treasure.

Nothing at all.

But that wouldn't be the first time the chancery has flipped the fickle finger of fate at the faithful, now, would it?

It was different back then

See this old album? Jefferson Airplane's first, from 1966.

Originally, Jefferson Airplane Takes Off -- the LP released before Grace Slick joined the band, when Signe Toly Anderson was the girl singer and Skip Spence hadn't yet bolted for Moby Grape -- had 12 tracks.

AFTER THE INITIAL PRESSING, it had 11 tracks, because the hurriedly deleted "Runnin' Round This World" contained this lyric:

Is it the music in your heart I love so much
Is it the rainbows of your smile I love to touch
There are red flowers in each kiss upon your lips
The times I've spent with you have been fantastic trips

It was a different world in 1966. If the record execs from that day somehow could have been transported to the hip-hop world of the new millennium, they probably would have gotten the vapors.

Still, in 1966, when somebody sang about "fantastic trips," no matter the context, it couldn't be good.

AND IF YOU THOUGHT that was bad, consider the original lyrics to "Run Around," which got a lyrical deep cleansing after that first pressing:

We use to dance out to space without a care
And our laughter come ringing and singing we rolled round the music,
Blinded by colors come crashing from flowers that sway as you lay under me

That got turned into this:

We use to dance out to space without a care
And our laughter come ringing and singing we rolled round the music,
Blinded by colors come crashing from flowers that sway as you stay here by me.

And, of course, there was the filthy song on the album -- "Let Me In." I think you know where this is going:

Oh, let me in
I want to be there
I gotta get in
You know where
Without a word to me
Without a look at me
You turned me down without a care . . .

Oh, let me in honey
Don't tell me you want money
I didn't know that you could
Be that unkind

This was made safe for the shaggy-haired youth of America thusly:

Oh, let me in
I want to be there
You shut your door
Now it ain't there
Without a word to me
Without a look at me
You turned me down without a care . . .

Oh, let me in honey
Don't tell me it's so funny
I didn't know that you could
Be that unkind

I DON'T KNOW. I guess s*** just happens unfortunate developments hold sway when folks are crooked deep down. And all the sanitizing by all the record companies -- or all the mullahs, as the case may be -- only can hold back the tide for a season before the levees break.

It's kind of like just how well creating the New Jerusalem on Earth through Republican politics has worked out for "values voters." Um hmm. You betcha.

Your best life now

From Slate:

Joel Osteen wants you to stand up straight. "Even many good, godly people have gotten into a bad habit of slumping and looking down," Osteen writes in his best-selling self-improvement tract Become a Better You. "[Y]ou need to put your shoulders back, hold your head up high, and communicate strength, determination, and confidence." After all, "We know we're representing Almighty God. Let's learn to walk tall."

Osteen is the pastor of Houston's Lakewood Church, a Pentecostal congregation recently named the largest in the country by Outlook magazine, hosting some 47,000 souls in the former Compaq Center, where the Houston Rockets used to play. Every Sunday, he broadcasts a running string of similar homespun nuggets of wisdom—usually rife with metaphors of automotive and financial trials that resonate with his exurban flock's daily routines—while beaming incandescently before an audience of millions on the Trinity Broadcasting Network and various other cable services. And each of those sermons kicks off with Osteen's patented chant, with those 47,000 voices declaring, "This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I do what it says I can do," and building to an oddly colorful climax: "I am about to receive the incorruptible, indestructible, ever-living seed of God, and I will never be the same. Never, never, never. I will never be the same. In Jesus' name. Amen."

The chant is about as close as Osteen's relentlessly upbeat preaching ever comes to a theological doctrine, and it captures many of the key themes behind his runaway appeal. There's the stark individualist ethos that lies behind the definition of scripture as first and foremost an agent of identity change. There's the curiously infantile quality of both the act of the chant and its diction. (No matter how emphatically an arena full of believers may shout "Never, never, never," they always sound like pouting toddlers.) Most of all, though, there's the vividly sexualized power ascribed to the Word of God, which serves as a sort of skeleton key to the Osteen phenomenon. While Joel Osteen has never formally trained as a minister, he is heir to a theological teaching—the movement known as Word-Faith. Word-Faith holds that believers possess, in divinely sanctioned snatches of scripture, the stuff of miraculous self-healing and prosperity—an odd turn for the Pentecostal movement, which first took root in some of the poorest (and blackest) stretches of the West and Southwest. Then again, the Word-Faith tradition is also part of a much broader movement toward therapeutic healing in American Protestantism—including the Mind Cure and New Thought teachings of the late 19th century that produced Christian Science, the positive thinking homilizing of Norman Vincent Peale, and all manner of New Age folderol, up through The Secret and The Prayer of Jabez.

It's not what they say, it's what they do

Huckabee is the one Republican candidate in the race who has talked often about working class and middle class Americans and the anxieties they have even in an economy that by the numbers looks pretty good. In an interview aboard the Huckabus, the candidate once again discussed the economic situation of "people at the lower ends of the economic scale," who because of rising energy, health care, and education prices "don't have the same level of disposable income they had this time a year ago."

The real story of the Huckabee campaign is that his candidacy contemplates a refashioning of the Republican party to address the concerns of middle and working class Americans. Thus, while it's true that many of these Americans are also religious conservatives--and true, too, that Huckabee leads among Iowa's religious conservatives by a very wide margin--it's a mistake to think that his campaign is narrowly pitched to that group of voters.

Huckabee has yet to fashion economic policies that might appeal to middle and working class voters--"Sam's Club Republicans," as they have been called, in contrast to the old "country club Republicans." But at some point his campaign presumably will have to offer policies to match his rhetoric.

What was striking about the rallies I saw was the extent to which Huckabee hopes to make common cause with people like himself--"who don't necessarily have the right pedigree .  .  . or the right last name .  .  . or all the resources"--in order to defeat his opponents. Thus, in Waterloo, he told the audience, "Nothing more gets to the heart of what we are than to say that no matter where you came from, or what your last name is, or what your parents were, or what they do for a living, you matter. You may not pick where you started from, but you have every opportunity to decide where you end up." That "you" is not an impersonal usage. As he told the audience, "I've lived the life many of you have lived."

-- Terry Eastland in the Weekly Standard,
profiling the Mike Huckabee campaign

The Late Show With David Letterman snagged Hillary Clinton as a last-minute guest for his New York City show tonight. But on the other coast, about 100 striking writers carrying signs saying "Mike Huckabee: What Would Jesus Do?" and "Huckabee: You Can't Deny This Cross" protested the Republican presidential candidate's decision to cross their union's picket line outside NBC Studios in Burbank even though he expressed
"unequivocal" and "absolute" support for the writers' cause earlier in the day. He was the main guest on Leno's first Tonight Show back from strike hiatus after Jay, too, decided to cross the picket line. The strikers have been crowding every entranceway all day, from 8 AM through 6 PM, to ensure they slammed the former Arkansas governor who of all the GOP candidates running for the White House has actively solicited and received union support. “We’re hoping that when he [Huckabee] arrives and sees the picket line he’ll turn around," said WGA West prez Patric Verrone. "We’ll be disappointed if he makes the appearance."

-- Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily

He made the appearance. So much for "a refashioning of the Republican party to address the concerns of middle and working class Americans," eh?

Scab.

'Oy veh! Jesus, get over here . . . now! The neighborhood kids are at it again!'

I'm not getting into this fight though, as a Catholic, I do have my doctrinal sympathies.

These kinds of Catholic-Protestant pissing matches always end up shedding a lot more heat than light, and they usually end up with everyone acting pretty damned un-Christian as an extra-added bonus. And the smell after a day or so is just stomach-turning.

ON THE OTHER HAND, in my mind's eye, I can picture mother Mary grabbing the Internet Monk (here's his website) and the Paragraph Farmer by the scruffs of the neck and dragging them to her hotshot Son, the rabbi, for some theological instruction and general straightening-out.

Brother Shea would have come to Jesus slightly ahead of the others, however, because Mama (with two hands full of neighborhood disorderliness already) would be propelling him forward via occasional swift kicks to the tuchus.

Come to think of it, though, that's pretty much how we Papists have seen the Mother of God all along, isn't it?

Fat, drunk and dentally-challenged . . .

. . . is no way for a country to go through life.

Who knew that the Brits' famed stiff upper lip got that way from trying to make it to the 'loo before blowing chunks?

FROM THE DAILY MAIL in London, we get this depressing account of the Big Night in the U.K.:

Binge-drinking revellers fuelled a chaotic start to 2008 as over-stretched ambulance workers battled to cope with emergency calls flooding in at a peak of one every eight seconds.

In the capital alone the London Ambulance Service had to deal with its highest number of emergency calls since the Millennium - the majority related to excess alcohol.

As midnight came and went there was mayhem as scores of drunken partygoers around the country tumbled into the streets, some wearing little more than their underwear.

Fights erupted and a string of dishevelled young men and women collapsed on benches and in doorways, too inebriated to remember or care that the night was supposed to be a celebration.

There to mop up the mess were thousands of emergency workers drafted in to provide cover on the busiest night of the year.

In the first four hours of 2008, London Ambulance Service (LAS) dealt with an astonishing 1,825 calls alone, peaking at over 500 calls an hour between 2am and 4am. The volume of 999 calls was up 17 per cent on last year' and four times worse than a normal night.

Meanwhile in the West Midlands the ambulance service fielded 1,400 calls in just five hours - a rate of one every 12 seconds. It was mirrored by the North East Ambulance Service which received 1,860 calls between 11pm and 5am.

Last night the astonishing number of calls to deal with booze-fuelled illness of injury prompted accusations that lives of those in real emergencies were being put at risk and demands for partygoers to wake up the costs of binge-drinking.

LAS spokeswoman Gemma Gidley said: "These calls put the Service under increased pressure to manage demand when we have to ensure we respond quickly to other patients with potentially life-threatening emergencies.

"People need to think about the real consequences of drinking so much that they require treatment."

In the south, the South Central Ambulance Service dealt with three times more incidents that normal.

OR, IN THE WORDS of that English prophet, Johnny Rotten:

God save the queen,
The fascist regime,
They made you a moron,
Potential H-bomb.

God save the queen,
She ain't no human being.
There is no future,
In England's dreaming.

Don't be told what you want,
Don't be told what you need,
There's no future no future,
No future for you!

God save the queen,
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves.

God save the queen,
'Cos tourists are money
Our figure's head
Is not what she seems.

Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh lord god have mercy
All claims are paid

When there's no future
How can there be sin?
We're the flowers in the dustbin,
We're the poison in your human machine,
We're the future; your future.

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves.

God save the queen
We mean it man
And there is no future
In England's dreaming.

No future no future
No future for you
No future no future
No future for me.

No future no future
No future for you
No future no future
No future for you
No future no future for you.

Countdown to king cakes

King cakes. Yum.

But only between 12th Night and Mardi Gras. Eating king cake during Lent -- or anytime else, for that matter -- is just so very wrong. The Associated Press tells us all:

In New Orleans people have always known what king cake is and when you should eat it.

These days that certainty is fading. Once a seasonal treat with a certain taste and texture, king cake is now eaten any time of the year by many non-traditionalists, and it takes a variety of forms.

For years, families in this city celebrated the arrival of Carnival season with king cake — an oval-shaped pastry that commemorated 12th Night, the day the three wise men were supposed to have arrived with gifts for the Baby Jesus. The season for king cakes would last through Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday ushers in Lent.

That’s as it should be, said Mardi Gras historian Errol Laborde. Like oysters, Creole tomatoes and crawfish, things are better at the proper time.

“No king cake will touch my lips before 12th Night or after Mardi Gras,” Laborde said.

For years after the early French settlers brought the tradition to New Orleans, king cake was a plain bread-like pastry topped with purple, green and gold sugar.

But, to the dismay of the traditionalists, these days king cakes can be many flavors and shapes and available all year round.

“I’m a purest,” said cookbook author Kit Wohl. “I believe king cake should be what it’s always been, plain and with a baby, but now people have gilded the lily. Now they can be made with stuffing, it can be sweet or savory.”

Some traditions remain. Each king cake contains a token, now its generally a pink, plastic baby, but it was originally a red bean. The person who gets it is supposed to supply the next king cake.

Although New Orleans is the king cake capital, many cities that have a Mardi Gras tradition have bakeries that produce some version during the season. That has meant more business for people like David Haydel Jr., 32, whose family has been baking in New Orleans for three generations. “It gradually expanded out through whole season and now, with the internet, we do king cakes all year.”

Dear RIAA: You Custer. Us Crazy Horse.

Thanks, RIAA! Now what the people are doing with your labels' music isn't stealing anymore. It's a political protest.

And I say "Power to the People!"

When the recording industry resorts to treating its customers like common criminals for ripping CDs they've bought onto the hard drives of computers they own, as detailed in this Washington Post story, it's time to engage in political acts aimed at bringing down those corporate tyrants:

Despite more than 20,000 lawsuits filed against music fans in the years since they started finding free tunes online rather than buying CDs from record companies, the recording industry has utterly failed to halt the decline of the record album or the rise of digital music sharing.

Still, hardly a month goes by without a news release from the industry's lobby, the Recording Industry Association of America, touting a new wave of letters to college students and others demanding a settlement payment and threatening a legal battle.

Now, in an unusual case in which an Arizona recipient of an RIAA letter has fought back in court rather than write a check to avoid hefty legal fees, the industry is taking its argument against music sharing one step further: In legal documents in its federal case against Jeffrey Howell, a Scottsdale, Ariz., man who kept a collection of about 2,000 music recordings on his personal computer, the industry maintains that it is illegal for someone who has legally purchased a CD to transfer that music into his computer.

The industry's lawyer in the case, Ira Schwartz, argues in a brief filed earlier this month that the MP3 files Howell made on his computer from legally bought CDs are "unauthorized copies" of copyrighted recordings.

"I couldn't believe it when I read that," says Ray Beckerman, a New York lawyer who represents six clients who have been sued by the RIAA. "The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation."

RIAA's hard-line position seems clear. Its Web site says: "If you make unauthorized copies of copyrighted music recordings, you're stealing. You're breaking the law and you could be held legally liable for thousands of dollars in damages."

They're not kidding. In October, after a trial in Minnesota -- the first time the industry has made its case before a federal jury -- Jammie Thomas was ordered to pay $220,000 to the big record companies. That's $9,250 for each of 24 songs she was accused of sharing online.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE to know is this: How many people use iTunes software? How many have used it to rip their CDs onto their computers? How many people have music on their iPods that originally was on a CD they bought?

Now, does the RIAA think it can lock us all up? It might get some of us, but the ones it doesn't -- and that number will be legion -- will kill the record labels dead.

Book it.

You act like you're George Armstrong Custer. We are Crazy Horse. And we buy WhoopAss by the case.

Patti Smith makes sense of this week

Um hmm. Yes, she does.

Reason 23,498,211 why Haugen ditties have no place before the altar of God

Young people are spiritually and culturally impoverished today because they don't know hymn singin' like this from squat. They have been cheated because this is not part of their patrimony.

They lack intangible but sweet knowledge of the reality of God because they do not hear -- in their heads and in their DNA -- Odetta and Tennessee Ernie Ford singing praises to Jesus, and they do not know how even the hardest hearts can crumble before the power of beautiful voices singing old hymns.

MY PARENTS never darkened the doors of a church unless there was a coffin in the center aisle. But they had a copy of Tennessee Ernie's "Hymns," and his voice echoes in the head of this son of the South, and he is singing "Softly and Tenderly" and "The Old Rugged Cross."

God works in mysterious ways, and you didn't have to spend much time in church to know there was majesty and truth in the grooves of that old LP.

Today, I worship in the modern-day Catholic Church in modern-day America. More or less, that church in this country has s***canned 2,000 years of culture, art and musical majesty in favor of liturgical lounge lizardry by hack composers with disproportionate egos.

NEVERTHELESS, at the altar, the bread and wine still become Jesus Christ's Body and Blood. And in my head and in my heart, I still hear Tennessee Ernie singing to a God Who is still greater than ourselves.

Amen.

Gathering cobwebs

Just checking in long enough to enunciate the obvious . . . that posting is light this week. The world might have taken down the Christmas tree and gone back to work and put away the holiday feast like that really ugly-ass tie you got from Aunt Hortense, but we haven't.

Because Christmas is 12 days long, you know. And Mrs. Favog has the week off.

Also, the next couple of days partially will be spent attending a wake and a funeral. And hugging old friends because I still can, you know?

Sooooooo . . . put another nickel in the Revolution 21 jukebox and listen to the Christmas show one more time this week for New Year's. Epiphany's a ways off yet.

Of Christmas gumbo and 'offering it up'

It's the wee hours of Christmas morning. The Christmas Eve chicken -and-andouille gumbo is in the fridge, the Christmas Eve guests are long gone and Midnight Mass is long over.

Christmas music plays on a Canadian station on our old Zenith, and I've just polished off a bottle of Cabernet. So I'm sitting at the computer, pretty much alone with my thoughts. And my memories.

THIS CHRISTMAS has been strange, to say the least. From the Omaha mall massacre to the passing of a young friend, it's been impossible to shake the specter of death looming over this season of joy. For so many here this holiday season, it has been a time of profound loss.

And in the dark and quiet of this Christmas morn, we take time to mourn, to recall those who live now only in our hearts and memories. . . .

Once again as in olden days
Happy golden days of yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Will be near to us once more

EVERY CHRISTMAS EVE I make a huge pot of gumbo and we throw open the doors to whomever wants to share in the largesse. It's my attempt to keep alive a tradition from my mother's side of the family in Louisiana, when my grandma -- and later my Aunt Sybil -- would cook up mass quantities of chicken gumbo and put out trays of sandwiches, relish, fruit cake and bourbon balls.

It seems like Aunt Sybil used to cram something like 100 relatives into her and Uncle Jimmy's tiny house in north Baton Rouge. I come from a family of loud, argumentative people -- it's a Gallic thing -- and opening the door to that caffeine, nicotine and highball-fueled yuletide maelstrom was more than a little like having front-row seats at a Who concert.

Without earplugs.

WHEN AUNT SYBIL and Uncle Jimmy moved out to the east side of town after my grandmother died, they gained some square footage. I'd like to think, though, that what the holiday gatherings lost in regards to that sardine je ne sais quoi, they made up for in "only in Louisiana" weirdness.

Like in 1983, when my brand-new Yankee bride learned first-hand that William Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor weren't making that s*** up.

Everything started out normal enough, ah reckon -- taking into account, however, that this was south Louisiana. You know, 87 quintillion relatives (the identities of some of whom, I had only the fuzziest of notions about) all talking at the same time. Loudly.

Of course, Mama assumed my bride had received full knowledge of all these people along with the marriage license. My bride, for her part, may well have been wondering whether she could get an annulment and a refund on the marriage license.

And then Aunt Joyce -- second wife of Mama's baby brother, Delry, whose first wife was mentioned only after spitting on the ground (or so it seemed) -- had a "spell."

IF WE HADN'T FIGURED this out by the trancelike appearance, the eyes rolled back into her head, and full knowledge of her bad heart, we would have been tipped off by everybody running around the house yelling "Joyce is havin' a SPEYUL!"

There could have been a fire, resulting in great carnage -- or something like that -- if Cousin Clayton hadn't been there to grab Joyce's burning cigarette.

Ever hear the song "Merry Christmas From the Family"? (And you would have if you'd listened to the Christmas edition of the Revolution 21 podcast.) Robert Earl Keen ain't making that s*** up, either.

Anyway, 20 people crowding around her announcing that Joyce was havin' a spell brought my aunt around after a fashion . . . and the show went on. At least until Aunt Sybil died some years back.

The sane one in my family, Aunt Sybil was the ringmaster of family togetherness, probably because she believed in "Baby, you got to offer it up." Everybody else . . . well . . . didn't.

TWENTY-FOUR YEARS after Aunt Joyce had a spell and Mrs. Favog got a masters in Southern Gothic, almost all of my aunts and uncles are gone. And I make my Christmas Eve gumbo up here in the frozen Nawth for friends who like exotic fare and funny stories about Growing Up Louisiana.

Then we go to Midnight Mass, being that Mrs. Favog and I are Catholic now, in no small measure because of Aunt Sybil and Uncle Jimmy, wild gumbo Christmases and "Baby, you got to offer it up."

After we were confirmed in 1990, the wife and I got a package from Aunt Sybil and Uncle Jimmy -- a Bible, his and her Rosary beads, and a crucifix. The biggest gift, though, was one they never knew they were giving.

Someday soon, we all will be together
If the fates allow
Until then, well have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

The Big Show's Xmas song list

Here's the lineup for this year's Christmas extravaganza on the Revolution 21 podcast.

The holidays: They're, uh, different here. Enjoy.

Bing Crosby & Judy Garland
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
1950 radio program

Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters
Jingle Bells
1943

Bing Crosby
Adeste Fideles
1942

Aaron Neville
O Holy Night
1993

Alison Moyet
The Coventry Carol
1987

Campbell Brothers
Silent Night
2001

Dodie Stevens
Merry Merry Christmas Baby
1959

Lou Rawls
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
1957

Elvis Presley
Blue Christmas
1957

Joss Stone
All I Want for Christmas
2007

U2
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
1989

Stan Freberg
Christmas Dragnet
1953

Jackson 5
Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town
1970

Bruce Springsteen
Merry Christmas Baby
1986

Ohio Players
Happy Holidays Pt. 1
1975

Curtis Mayfield & the Impressions
Amen
1964

Harry Connick, Jr.
I Pray on Christmas
1993

Joan Baez
Oh Happy Day
1976

John Lennon
Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
1971

Robert Earl Keen
Merry Christmas From the Family
1994

Merry Christmas. Here's the show.

Here's the Christmas 2007 episode of the Revolution 21 podcast. Just when you think you know where this show is going, it's going to humble you bad.

Just my Christmas gift to you. Tee hee hee!

IN ALL SERIOUSNESS, a blessed Christmas season to you all . . . may your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white.

Thanks, Mr. Berlin.

Oh, and here's something to hold close this Christmas. It's probably the most beautiful and profound carol ever written -- O Holy Night by Adolphe Adam, to the French poem, Minuit, chrétiens by Placide Cappeau:

Oh holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appear'd and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! Oh, hear the angels' voices!
Oh night divine, Oh night when Christ was born;
Oh night divine, Oh night, Oh night Divine.

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.

He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Behold your King.

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
His power and glory evermore proclaim.

Au revoir, pas adieu

Our young friend, Chris Rudloff, lost his fight last night, about the time I was uploading that last post.

Chris was a special young man with a gleaming future ahead of him . . . ahead of them, Chris and the love of his life, Abby. It was just in May that we attended their wedding, then partied through the night in celebration of their future together.

WE JUST DIDN'T KNOW -- couldn't have even believed -- that future would be this damned short. It's not right, and it's not fair. Of course, not a damned thing about life is fair. Death, either.

I write this through my tears this cruel Christmastime, and nothing breaks my heart more than to think that, at such a young age, Abby is living the worst nightmare of any woman who looks upon her husband and sees the love of her life. And of any man who desperately loves his wife and knows -- absolutely knows -- that it's all true when he calls her his "better half."

Likewise, it goes without saying how devastatingly wrong it is for any parent to bury a child.

This week before Christmas, I don't feel like decorating the tree. I don't want to do a Christmas edition of the Revolution 21 podcast. Particularly for us in Omaha, this season of good tidings and joy has brought in a harvest of death.

And now this for those of us who knew Chris and loved him.

WE WILL, however, decorate the tree. I will now get to work on putting together a Christmas podcast, though it may be a little late. It is necessary to celebrate the baby who came into the world to conquer death.

It is because of that first Christmas, that joyous day so long ago when God became man, that we now tell our friend Chris au revoir. Not adieu.

It's not supposed to be this way

In all of my wife's and my years of helping out with youth group at our Catholic parish here in Omaha, there was one band of brothers who were absolute stalwarts in "Connections."

That would be Justin, Chris and Joel. Teen-agers aren't supposed to be that dependable . . . or universally good-natured . . . or selfless . . . or faith-filled, for that matter. It gets your attention when you run across the likes of Justin, Chris and Joel.

Mrs. Favog and I had the pleasure of watching this trio of eventual Eagle Scouts come into the high-school group as 14-year-old kids -- first Justin, then Chris a couple of years later, then Joel a couple of years after that. More than anything, you remember two things. First, that they were always there, and you could always count on them. Each of the three even worked in the church office.

Second, you remember knowing from the first time you saw them that they were going to grow up to be good men. God knows that's not nothing, not today. It's a lot.

OVER THE YEARS, amid the teen-age hustling mob, we watched Justin fall in love with Annie, then stand beside her right after graduation as she fought cancer. We always knew they'd get married, and they did -- we rushed to make it to a hurried ceremony at church, hours before Justin shipped off to Iraq.

He came back in one piece, finished his hitch, and then we watched as yesterday's high-school kids became parents of a dear little girl.

Likewise, we watched Chris grow into a fine young man and fall in love with Abby. I think "Connections," in some mystical Catholic way, must be some kind of institutional Yenta.

And this summer, after Chris' graduation from college, we all gathered for Chris and Abby's wedding. Of course, Joel -- the youngest sibling, now a newly minted paramedic -- was the life of the party.

A couple of us old farts reminded Joel that we would blackmail him, just as soon as his future children were old enough to hear stories about their old man.

And after the honeymoon, Chris was off to optometry school in Philadelphia, where his bride would join him this winter after her graduation.

NOW CHRIS lies in grave condition in a Philly hospital, having fallen victim to something they call Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Today, the updates have gone from so-so to catastrophic.

It's not supposed to be this way: Chris and Abby have their whole lives together before them. Bright futures, successful careers, perfect children.

Grave illness is for middle-aged fat men like me. It's for those of us who have the luxury of thanking God for the grace of a life well lived, or mourning over roads not taken and opportunities squandered.

It's not fair that hopes and dreams, future years of marital love and generations to come should teeter upon some existential precipice, shakily tethered to this world by IV drips and a ventilator. There's something horribly and frighteningly wrong with this picture.

It's one of those mysteries we Catholics keep talking about. I've faced them before, real close to home. Now we face another.

And I hate it.

Please, if you have a moment, say a prayer for Chris and Abby. They need them so much, and life is so unfair.

Barbarians at the gate

With friends like this, as this Times-Picayune video demonstrates, poor folks in New Orleans are SOL.

These aren't "activists," and they aren't "progressives." What they are . . . are barbarians. At the gate.

The fear of being associated in any way with uncivilized, anarchistic trash such as this is why I'll never call myself "progressive." I prefer last New Deal Democrat standing, myself.

In the case of New Orleans' homegrown idiots and professional mau-mauers -- not to mention Slacker Nation that showed up in "solidarity" with them -- "progressive" couldn't be more ironic a moniker.

I'd say these fools are positively regressive. Regressive all the way back to Attila the Hun at the gates of Rome.

Martin died for fools like this?

I guess the TV lady's stories weren't on today.

Instead, Sharon Jasper was at the New Orleans City Council meeting screaming "racist" at a white man who favored demolishing four of the city's housing projects in favor of mixed-income developments.

LATER, Jasper complained to the council that opponents were being treated "inhuman" and that she liked to have nice things, like anyone else.

She said she grew up in the projects, and her family always had nice things, because they wanted live well. She said that, in her now-abandoned apartment in the projects, she had a side-by-side refrigerator-freezer.

Because she likes nice things. Like her 60-inch TV. Inside the publicly funded apartment she occupies. Because she doesn't have the money to actually pay rent herself.

I guess it's racist to suggest that if you don't have the money to pay rent, you don't have the money to be buying big-screen televisions.

Hell, I would like a big-screen TV. Unfortunately, we have this thing called a "house payment." Unlike Sharon Jasper, the unwitting spokesmodel for What the Hell is Wrong With New Orleans. Well, at least a sizable chunk of what's wrong with New Orleans -- and a big, big part of why the rest of America has had it up the wazoo with the Crescent City.

You don't believe this ex-Louisianian who now lives in the Midwest? Check out the comboxes for any story having anything to do with Katrina and federal aid for New Orleans.

Can anyone say "extreme sense of entitlement"? How about "extreme outlook-reality disconnect"?

Then again, we're all just racists. Unlike the saintly souls engaging in a near-riot outside City Hall and the ones inside the council chamber shouting down council members and brawling with police.

Attacking police officers. At the city council meeting.

HERE'S A BIT of The Times-Picayune's liveblogging on the contentious council meeting way down yonder . . . in America's Chechnya:

11 a.m.: Meeting begins after several people ousted from chambers

The council finally opens the meeting, with the customary pledge to allegiance and the playing of the national anthem. At this time, several people have been removed by police, including rapper Sess 4-5, who when asked for his real name by a reporter, replies, "F---- off."

The chamber is filled and quiet, after the fracas that broke out in the center of the chamber near the podium.

10:54 a.m.: Protesters scream as they are forcibly ejected

Protester Krystal Muhammad is carried out of the chamber by a group of police and deputies. She screams repeatedly. "I'm not a slave!" she shouts. A second woman is also forcibly removed, as Fielkow calls the meeting to order, one hour late.

"Next time you'll be asked to leave," an officer tells the remaining crowd. "Plain and simple."

The Rev. James Smith gives the invocation: "May we never be lazy in our work for peace. May we honor those who have died in defense of our ideals....Help all of us to appreciate one another."

10:50 a.m.: Fights break out, police struggle to maintain order

A struggle breaks out in council chambers. Police officers race to break it up. At least three people are ejected, as shouting fills the chamber. A woman slaps at a cameraman's lens, drawing his ire.

"Security, security," Council President Arnie Fielkow says into the microphone. "If you do not obey the rules, you must leave."

Krystal Muhammad shouts out, "I'm not going nowhere."

10:42 a.m.: Protesters boo council members

Several protesters greet the council members with boos and slurs. Krystal Muhammad calls Council Member Stacy Head a racist. Head responds by blowing a kiss and waving to her.

Muhammad keeps shouting. "Stacy Head, she's the real devil in charge!"

Jay Arena shouts, "Jackie Clarkson, you're a sell-out."

10:37 a.m.: Council finally enters to howls from audience

Council members begin entering the chamber.

"Bring your coward selves out here!" Krystal Muhammad shouts. "Let the people in here. We've got plenty of seats in here."

Muhammad, who says she is with the New Black Panther Party, calls out to the council members: "You no good sell outs. I bet your house is still standing!"

10:30 a.m.:Lawyer criticizes council for limiting audience

City Hall officials stick by their earlier statement that they are limiting the crowd to 278 for safety reasons. Council members still haven't entered the room. The meeting was set for 10 a.m.

Attorney Tracie Washington accused officials of changing the rules for the public housing crowd.

"That's retarded," Washington says to Peggy Lewis, clerk of council. "You have to let these people in. You've got 800,000 police here. Ain't nobody going to do anything in here."

10:22 a.m.: Both sides wait for meeting to start, words exchanged

"I'm for the demolition and rebuilding," says John Ales, 42, a cook who lives in Mid-City. He is the man seated behind Sharon Sears Jasper, who minutes earlier had called him a "racist white man."

Meanwhile, the council members have yet to enter the chamber. A man is shouting in front of a bevy of video cameras about the homeless problem and how he is from public housing. "All of us are getting screwed," he shouts.

10:15 a.m.: Audience told they must take a seat, tempers flare

The meeting hasn't started yet. Council members haven't entered the chamber.

Civil sheriff's deputies continue to try and keep order, telling the people inside that they may not stand during the meeting and that everyone must have a seat. Tempers flare in one section of the chamber.

"You're a racist white man," Sharon Sears Jasper, a former St. Bernard complex resident shouts at a man seated behind her.

"Ma'am, the color of my skin isn't the issue," the man replies.

"Stop the demolition! Stop the demolition!" several people start chanting.