### Apollo BBS Archive - December 26, 1991

    *=******************************* Ram Gram *******************************=*
                      <<<<<< From the SYSOPs of Apollo >>>>>>
    Rod...
            Geesh, what a bitter BABY you are... You can't even be talked to
    without going off into a bitter rage, or is that a bitter SULK.

            The CHRIST Child is the reason for the Season.... like it or not!

            Grow up and accept the FACTS!
    eread or ontinue:Continue

        Welcome to Apollo BBS --- The Oldest BBS in Arizona --- Since 1982

        Happy Hollidays from the Apollo SysOp's to ALL .......

    *=* Main Menu entered *=*

    Main Menu command:JN

    *=* Journey to a SIG *=*

    *=* X-Rated Cosmos Bulletin Board entered *=*

    X-Rated Cosmos Bulletin Board command:$C

    Press  to abort

    Message: 5282
    Author: $ Apollo SysOp
    Category: Shit-Chat!
    Subject: Paul on Rod
    Date: 12/26/91  Time: 08:48:03

            As Paul, I too am going to IGNOR Rod's posts...  I was a little
    'TIFFED' to say the least that Rod would post his drivel against the
    Christian religion on 'Christmas Day'.  He could have held off till another
    day, but no, this guy has no sensitivity to his fellow man whatsoever.

            I am fed up with personal attacks on the PUBlic board as is, and on
    day of 'Peace' and 'Cease Fire'... it's just was too much.

            I would use the 'straw-man' thing here, but I do believe with Rod
    standing in the 'fire', he could not even build one!

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-

    Message: 5283
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Shit-Chat!
    Subject: Cease Fire
    Date: 12/26/91  Time: 09:35:51

    Yeah, they really know how to be peaceful -- Christians killing each other
    in Croatia, and Georgians (probably many Orthodox Catholics) killing each
    other yesterday in Tbilisi.

    On the other hand, the IRA promised to stop the "holiday bombing campaign"
    for a few days.

    Message: 5284
    Author: $ Green Lantern
    Category: Shit-Chat!
    Subject: Cliff as Paul
    Date: 12/26/91  Time: 10:33:06

    I knew it !

    Message: 5285
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: $#!+
    Subject: Beau/ceasefire
    Date: 12/27/91  Time: 02:33:07

    According to Hirsch, "cultural literacy" doesn't have to mean remembering
    every detail of what you were taught in school, as long as you recognize and
    remember the general drift of it.  Sellar and Yeatman wrote that "History is
    not what you thought.  It is what you can remember."  They were being funny
    at the time, though Hirsch wasn't.

    So if I thought very hard, I could probably remember the title and author of
    a poem we read at school about the Crusades.  Right now I can't.  But it
    started off with some words about "Don John of Austria is going to the war",
    and I remember very little else about it except for the one line that sticks
    in my mind: "And Christian killing Christian in a narrow dusty room."

    I too thought it was awfully nice (as we say in England) of the IRA to give
    us a break at Christmas.  I should also mention how sincerely they apologize
    when they accidentally kill the wrong person.  All right, it's usually when
    the victim was on their own side, but it still takes a big man to admit his
    mistakes.

         When Irish eyes are smiling,
         All the world is bright and gay

    Tra-la-la!

    X-Rated Cosmos Bulletin Board command:EC

    You chose Cosmos-Chatter

    Subject:Cliff/Religion

    Enter a line containing only an <*> to stop
     1:I can't really think of anything to say, my mind is a blank.  -Rod
     2:end

    Edit command:S

    Saving message...
    The message is 5286

    X-Rated Cosmos Bulletin Board command:JN

    *=* Journey to a SIG *=*

    *=* Late Night Bulletin Board entered *=*

    Late Night Bulletin Board command:$C

    Press  to abort

    Message: 2105
    Author: $ Felix Cat
    Category: Insomniac & inspired
    Subject: I sure don't
    Date: 12/25/91  Time: 03:20:02

    get on this sig very often.

    Well, Merry Christmas everyone!

    Message: 2106
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: last
    Date: 12/26/91  Time: 00:16:18

    Well, thanks!  Even though it has just passed.

    Message: 2107
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit-Chat
    Subject: Travis Sysop
    Date: 12/27/91  Time: 02:36:21

    There isn't a "Conference Room" SIG -- remember?

    Late Night Bulletin Board command:JN

    *=* Journey to a SIG *=*

    *=* Nick's Music Palace Bulletin Board entered *=*

    Nick's Music Palace Bulletin Board command:$C

    Press  to abort

    Message: 1578
    Author: $ Nick Ianuzzi
    Category: Disk Jockey
    Subject: don't forget
    Date: 12/26/91  Time: 03:44:57

    Don't forget Doro Pesche, the babe from Germany.

    Message: 1579
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Disk Jockey
    Subject: Connick, Jr.
    Date: 12/26/91  Time: 06:45:56

    Howzabout some reviews of all those CDs everyone got for Christmas?

    My wife gave me a copy of Harry Connick Jr.'s "Red Light Blue Light."  It
    is, I think, the best-sounding CD recording I've ever heard.  The music is
    big band styled swing and you can hear every instrument.  Wonderful!

    Add to that Connick's touch for great arrangements and inventive tunes and
    lyrics and you've got a terrific album.

    Highly recommended to fans of straight-ahead jazz.

    Message: 1580
    Author: $ Green Lantern
    Category: Disk Jockey
    Subject: Bill/Connick
    Date: 12/26/91  Time: 10:34:15

    You lucky dog ! I want that CD.

    Enter category,  for list:D

    You chose Disk Jockey

    Subject:review

    Enter a line containing only an <*> to stop
     1:My latest CD is "The Worst of Jefferson Airplane".  It is really really
     2:good.  I will check out Connick's music because that really sounded good,
     3:Bill.
     4:end

    Edit command:S

    Saving message...
    The message is 1581

    Public Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 80852
    Author: $ James Hawley
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Banks/$3000 limit?
    Date: 12/27/91  Time: 00:56:53

    How long has the $3000 limit been in effect?  I've withdrawn over $3000
    before and was never aware of any paperwork involved.  Also sent
    international drafts for over $3000.  And was never aware of paperwork.  I
    also transfer medium amounts of money between accounts every month.  Should
    I be worried?  It just seems so much nonsense that they're trying to pull on
    us.  I noticed when I fly abroad, that there is also a 10,000 limit.  In
    cash, securites, or other negotiable (including checks, I think) items.

    Should we be holding money in other countries?

    Message: 80853
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Rod
    Date: 12/27/91  Time: 02:38:00

    Do you think the baby boy Jesus, or even the grown-up Jesus, himself
    excluded much of the world's population?  Or was it a bunch of men who came
    after him and used him as an excuse to do that?

    Here's an interesting question.  If you met the real, historical Jesus --
    and assuming his character was something like what the Gospel writers
    presented to us -- do you think you would have liked him?  This is assuming
    of course that he really existed, though few people doubt that today.

    I suspect Mr. Matlock would have called him a fraud.  My guess is that you'd
    look at him differently than that, though you might be annoyed with him for
    digging up all this Heavenly Father business, when he should have known what
    a hornet's nest he was stirring up for the future.

    Message: 80854
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Christmas music
    Date: 12/27/91  Time: 02:39:46

    My neighbor said he was fed up with Christmas carols, "Hark the Herald
    Angels" in particular.  I don't know why he picked on that one, but he and
    his wife usually have a houseful of people and if they only own one record
    of Christmas music which somebody keeps putting on again and again, I can
    see he'd get tired of it eventually.  All the same, I can't feel as he does.
    The "Herald Angels" is one of my favorites.  Although Mendelssohn wrote the
    music, I'm sure Handel wishes he had instead.  That inveterate showman would
    have appreciated the power in this masterpiece of choral splendor.

    Music is very much a part of Christmas.  It sets the right atmosphere.  It
    gets people in the mood to buy things, for example, as every store owner and
    mall manager realizes.  So each year they remind us in good time of the
    coming of Christmas with everything from "Herald Angels" to "Jingle Bells"
    pouring forth from unseen speakers -- usually starting around September.

    When I was at school (in England one is "at" school, not "in" it), we had a
    short religious assembly each morning, and around Christmas time we would
    naturally sing Christmas hymns.  Christmas music was therefore a daily
    reminder of the general mood of cheer, even while we were "in" school and
    anxious to get out of it.  Even those people who never see the inside of a
    church hear Christmas music on radio and TV and while shopping, and they
    play it in their homes to reinforce the Christmas mood.  Christmas music,
    like any other aspect of a culture, is a tradition, a self-perpetuating
    phenomenon.

    For this self-perpetuation process to work effectively, a piece of music
    must be an authentic part of the Christmas tradition.  A "tradition", by
    definition, *is* old.  Every tradition had to have some starting point; but
    on the very first occasion when it was practiced, it was not yet a
    tradition.  It took repetition to do that -- notwithstanding the kind of
    optimism displayed by a bowler I knew who, after throwing a strike, would
    announce hopefully: "Well, that's one in a row!"

    Christmas music must be authentic to be capable of evoking the true
    Christmas cheer, the comforting air of timelessness that I spoke of in an
    earlier post.  What this means in practical terms is that it must be able to
    hook into the most archaic childhood memories when Christmas was a time of
    pure magic and joy -- unadulterated by all those grown-up worldly worries
    about what to get for Aunt Mildred or whether the dinner will burn, or even
    whether there will be enough money to buy presents for everybody.

    To be truly authentic, a piece of Christmas music should ideally be as old
    as possible.  At the very least it should be as old as you are.

    Religious music has a head start in this respect.  Most of it *is* old.  The
    Church, after all, has been around almost as long as Christmas has, and some
    people even remember that there's a connection between the two.  This means
    the repertoire of "authentic" Christmas music is necessarily limited.  But
    it doesn't have to be small.

    If you play the same music over and over again, I suppose you might get fed
    up with it, as my neighbor did.  But if it doesn't work so well to augment
    it by adding brand-new tunes, you can always do the opposite and extend it
    backwards in time instead.  Some of our favorite Christmas music in our
    house is very obscure, dating from four and five hundred years ago,
    admirably performed by the Boston Camerata to the accompaniment of the lute,
    shawm, and sackbut, and interspersed with readings from a Tyndale Bible in
    the original and quaint pronunciation of the time.

    Some people might think of this as "highbrow", or at least a bit on the
    solemn side; but much of it is anything but solemn.  When we went to the
    First Assembly's Christmas Celebration a couple of weeks back, it came as a
    surprise to hear some ordinary English words sung to a tune that few people
    would have recognized.  The tune was familiar to us, but the words should
    have been different:

         Riu, riu, chiu, la guarda ribera
         Dios guardo el lobo de nuestra cordera...

    a syncopated rhythm accompanied by clapping hands that could just as well
    have been castanets, for this is a Spanish song of the 16th century.  Lots
    of this old music is sheer fun.  Then there's the Provencal story of the
    luckless pilgrim to the Holy Land who falls in the river on his way.

    Some songs, far from indulging in deep religious introspection, get right
    down to the business of celebrating Christmas with spontaneous merriment,
    like this 16th-century Catalan song whose words translate, roughly, as

         Ding dong, Virgin Mary,
         Ding dong, how we will dance!

    "Herald Angels" is fun to sing, and you can put enthusiasm into it.  But
    there's a strong temptation to inject a little mischief into other songs, as
    we did at school with "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night":

         While shepherds washed their socks by night,
         All seated round the tub,
         A bar of Sunlight soap came down
         And they began to scrub.

    This parody, and others like it, must be nearly as old as the song itself.
    One of the most parodied of Christmas songs is "The Twelve Days of
    Christmas", ranging from the version sung by a comedian whose name escapes
    me ("...and a Most Lovely Lavender Tie"), to one that we used to sing:

         ...Four Boy Scouts
         Three dirty whores
         Two $h!thouse doors -- and My Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.

    (This last word is pronounced "Bew-lee", for the uninitiated.)  I don't know
    what Lord Montagu had done to deserve immortalization in this parody, but
    I'm sure it was something pretty unsavory.  Possibly that was where the Boy
    Scouts came in.

    "Twelve Days" is one of a minority of secular Christmas songs that also
    happens to be old.  In spite of its many parodies, it still stands the test
    of time quite well and can be sung in its original form without too much
    giggling -- unlike "Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly".  To modern ears,
    "don we now our gay apparel" conjures up images of Yuletide being celebrated
    with a drag ball.  Even if it weren't for that unfortunate line, the Timex
    Watch Company ruined the song for me years ago.  When I hear the tune, it's
    hard for me even to give it its correct name.  All that's running around in
    my mind is the idiot refrain: "Ticka-ticka-Timex, la la la!"  I suppose this
    is a triumph of brand name recognition.

    Of the more modern works, "White Christmas" and "Sleigh Ride" have earned
    their authenticity; they've both been around longer than I have.  So has
    that perennial favorite, "Jingle Bells".  I'm not so sure about the lady
    warbling the delights of "Christmas Time in the City".  That may be a
    cultural gap; I'm not sure if I ever heard the song until I came to the U.S.
    I have problems with this song, quite apart from the one I mentioned last
    year: that the mood it aspires to is blown out of the water by my insane
    impulse to sing "Cockle Shells" after "Silver Bells".

    It's like the line from "Winnie the Pooh" that runs "whatever his weight in
    pounds, shillings, and ounces...", where Pooh explains that "the shillings
    just wanted to come in after the pounds, so I let them."

    But I have a strong impression that this song is somehow deliberately
    *contrived*.  All this emphasis on "bright lights" smacks of artificial
    warmth -- like artifical coloring and flavor.  "This is Santa's big scene":
    a phrase reeking of modern slang, with strong undertones of materialism.
    The line about "shoppers rush home with their treasures" is a dead giveaway.
    Who wrote this song, anyway?  And what's more important, *why* did they
    write it?  I have a private theory that it was commissioned by the United
    Chambers of Commerce as a subtle but powerful encouragement to make people
    *buy* things at Christmas.  This song was meant to be exposed first on
    radio, then played at shopping malls to activate the trigger.  If people
    would only listen to the telltale line: "ding-a-ling, hear them ring", they
    would wise up instantly to this practical application of Pavlovian theory.

    The song was well dressed up with a pretty melody, and they chose a woman
    singer because female voices are more seductive.  Like so many things sold
    today, it was expertly packaged, all plastic and tinsel and bright colors.

    "Silver Bells" is almost in direct opposition to "We Three Kings of Orient
    Are".  This is another perennial favorite, but it's an overly serious song
    with its formal poetic phrases about people who "traverse afar" and so on.

    Perhaps we wouldn't be so tempted to snicker at the pompous figures of these
    three Eastern potentates if it weren't for the accompanying music.  Did the
    composer hope to infuse a proper solemnity by choosing a minor key?  If so,
    he failed dismally.  The six-eight rhythm has a kind of lugubrious
    bumptiousness: RUMP-ty TUMP-ty TIDDely-POM (more shades of Winnie the Pooh),
    redolent of the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" or that other sorcerer in Holst's
    "Neptune".  Very bad packaging indeed: one never knows whether to look
    serious or to laugh.  At school, we ended up doing both by hiding our
    guffaws behind our hands, especially when we got to that infamous fourth
    verse about myrrh's "bitter perfume" and "shades of gathering gloom", where
    our music teacher cautioned us to sing slowly and sadly:

         Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
         Seal'd in the stone-cold tomb.

    "RUMP-ty TUMP-ty TIDDely-POM," we went galumphing gaily onward with ghoulish
    cheerfulness and no change of pace whatever, while he screamed at us to slow
    down.  No wonder this song invites parodies like the one I posted yesterday.

    Some songs try too hard, or too ineptly; others cry out to be parodied
    because they're so naive, and even suggest their own parodies, like "The
    Little Drummer Boy".  To me, "The Little Drummer Boy" is not a truly
    authentic part of the Christmas tradition.  My daughter likes it a lot, but
    she's only eight, so I suppose she should.  It's a lot older than she is.

    I, on the other hand, remember well a time when there was no Little Drummer
    Boy.  I remember his first appearance, out of nowhere, though I was quite
    young myself at the time.  I've tried very hard to authenticate him by a
    mental act of will, a stretch of the imagination, poetic license.  But the
    stories we learn at our mother's knee we learn well -- usually because we
    demand constant repetition of them.  In our culture the tale of the Nativity
    is firmly fixed.  Wise Men we remember, and shepherds too; but we know
    perfectly well that in that stable so far away there *was* no Little Drummer
    Boy.  Could the Gospel writers have overlooked him?  Disappointingly, no.  A
    swineherd, or the innkeeper's son might have passed muster; but the Little
    Drummer Boy just does not belong in that sector of the space-time continuum.
    He's a fake, an anachronism, a refugee from Revolutionary War times perhaps;
    or maybe he got lost from the set of "Gone With the Wind".

    Everyone seems to find the song so touching.  But it's not just its inherent
    absurdity that gets to me, its lack of historicity.  The song's naivete, its
    pathetic desire to please, stirs up that same wicked urge that made Winnie
    the Pooh put the shillings after the pounds, that made me want to sing
    "cockle shells" after "silver bells", and now makes me want to sing

         Come, they told me, beruppa-bum-bum,
         Up your bum, bum, bum...

    Does anyone else find this song dumb, dumb, dumb?

    Message: 80862
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Gordon/Jesus
    Date: 12/27/91  Time: 03:13:25

    Good question Gordon.  If I met the bibical Jesus, as I understood that
    person to be from me reading the Christian Bible, how would I treat him....
    Hmmmmmmm.

    I thought he was portrayed rather well.  I think I would have liked him at
    least the image I formed while reading.  All he was saying is that everybody
    should love everybody regardless of race, color, creed, nationality or
    social position.  He showed how easy it was to make the 'ethers' into
    anything he wanted, whenever he wanted thus he could feed billions of
    people with just a couple of fish and some grain.  He showed that to die was
    nothing, easy as pie to give up flesh.  Why stay on planet earth when some
    mighty fine celestial happenings await all brave souls.  But then again I
    read it in the sixties under candlelight with a mind that hungered for
    anything that resembled truth in this frightful world.  I smoked pot and
    read the bible and thought on it and I saw beauty and peace.

    But then I come out of my shell and into the outer world and I see people
    using religion as a tool or as an excuse to hate.  I couldn't find another
    Christian and consequently I was thrown out of many a religion.

    Now I see god as anything and everything, the human, the pig, the cockroach,
    the turkey, the planet itself.  I see every atom in the universe as equal.

    Look here.  This is how I feel today.  I am basically unimpressed by
    planet life.  There is nothing that I need or want from this planet or any
    planet for that matter.  The lowly physical self that I wear could do with a
    change.  I have responsibilties and as long as I feel I have them I will
    remain.  But happily I go.  I want to start a new fad in dying.  Dying Can
    Be Fun.  But at least it should be.

    The people of a particular town heard that Jesus was visiting and was
    reported to be "the son of god".  The people were curious and gathered
    'round him, asking him if he were that person.  And his reply was, 'we are
    all sons of god'.  I forget the exact words but that was the idea that I
    associated with them.

    All men are Jesus and I suppose by the same token that all women are Marys.
    If we really want to worship something then worship life itself although
    that is really not necessary.

    It is not fruitful to go around 'worshipping' something, anything.  If we
    just respect each and every life form and then get the hell out when the
    time seems right.  If you know what I mean.  -Rod

    P.S.  Sorry I rambled so but thanks for the question.  I was glad to answer.

    Message: 80864
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Gordon/Music
    Date: 12/27/91  Time: 03:39:26

    I listened to the Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Mamas and Papas and some
    others.