November 30, 2007

Winter Holidays = God Awful Pop Music

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Regrettably, I spent my morning listening to songs on the Monster Ballads Xmas CD and the LeeVees’ How Do You Spell Channukkahh EP. Any holiday spirit I had when I woke up this morning has now been completely ripped out of my system.

I’m not sure why holiday rock almost always = terrible rock, but the monster ballad CD and the silly Jewish rock EP are living proof that rock songs about Santa and pop songs about potato latkes are not, and will never be, cool, funny, interesting, or enjoyable in any way. I want to personally thank them for giving me a full-fledged holiday headache.

Did Lita Ford really think that recording “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” with Twisted Sister was a good use of her time? And when Tom Keifer of Cinderella sings “Blue Christmas,” all I can think is, who the hell is Tom Keifer? As difficult as it is for me to admit that I actually bought a Winger tape (yes, a cassette tape) once, their version of “Happy Christmas (War is Over)” is four minutes and six seconds of sheer torture. As for the LeeVees, to me they sound like They Might Be Giants performing at a Bar Mitzvah.

Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French, a co-executive producer of the rock CD, had this to say about the compilation:”‘The ‘Monster Ballads Xmas’ CD will bring the party vibe into the holiday season with enough hairspray to further enlarge the hole in the ozone layer above the North Pole.” Wow.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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