First, a quick update to yesterday's column. I've discovered that, this week, the Social Security Administration has reversed its decision in two of the four communities mentioned yesterday. Again, without explanation or comment. Doesn't change the essentials of what I wrote, though. They're still being fucks.
For those of you wondering if the column might do what so many other daily content items do, and play nice for the holidays, fuck no. This is not a place for happy notes to friends, family, and a small but still asonishingly-burgeoning readership. This is where I hate stuff. I reserve the happy thoughts and nice sentiments for my actual day-to-day life. But since it IS the last day before Christmas, it does feel like this would be a good time to issue a memo to America's Lighted Decoration Whores: YOU ARE DUMB.
Let's get our terms established right off the bat, so that people with a couple of motorized Rudolphs in their yard don't get pissed off and consider, then fail to follow through on, sending me nasty e-mail. There is a line, a sharp dividing line, between People With Decorations and Fucking Asshole Lightwhores. And you cross that line the first time you get a big Christmas erection from passersby slowing or stopping their cars to gawk at your lawn.
That is the point at which you have given in to the dark side. When you have gone from celebrating to showing off. Because once you've gotten that little taste of undeserved, purchased fame, you will not stop. You will add more and more glowing crap to your house, not to honor Jesus or celebrate "I Don't Believe In God, And Neither Will You After You See How Ugly The Sweater I Got You Is Day", you're doing it to be noticed.
Check your fucking ego at the door, people. All you've done is spend a lot of money. Hell, not only are some people spending wads on the lights, they're HIRING PROFESSIONALS to set up the displays for them. These are the people who want to make the tax cuts permanent - fuckers who have enough money to pay people to decorate their yards for them. For fuck's sake, Hanukkah is the Festival of Lights, and it doesn't have this many lights.
There is no "art" involved in these big displays. If your decorations are big enough to be seen from orbit, you are not some kind of creative genius. When Christo covers trees more discriminately than you do, it's time to take a step back and realize your life is a lie. When you've put up your fourth Nativity display, complete with glowing baby Jesus and animatronic donkeys, you've moved beyond theology and into pathology. And don't try to justify it to the media, either, or you come off sounding like a prick. ACTUAL QUOTE TIME!
"To see the little kids -- their eyes are this big. They're wowed by all the lights and color. And not just kids. We like the buses from nursing homes, too." - Dave Maetzold, who lives in Edina. Anybody from the Twin Cities will be saying "OF COURSE HE DOES" at this point. For those of you in other locales, your community, I'm sure, also has a suburb where all the rich white pricks live. Just substute that for "Edina". Yes, Dave. You're helping the little children by burning up all their resources so you can wave your giant Christmas dick for all the world to see. And just to make crystal clear that I am not being unfair to Rich White Edina Asshole Dave, let's hear from his wife.
"I held the flashlight once, but he's got this pride thing." - Sharon Maetzold, who was NOT IN ANY WAY describing their sex life. The local paper also mentiones that Dave, doing all the work himself, frequently says "I've got my best man on the job.", which puts him in the running for Most Punchable Man of 2004.
The rest of you need to stop enabling these fucks. That means not bundling the kids into the Ford Explorer and puttering around the suburbs at five miles an hour. That means not bringing a list and maps to all the local lightwhores. That means not PUBLISHING a list of all the local lightwhores. That extends to not interviewing them or putting them in the paper. Starve the ego, kill the beast.
Christmas lights will not go away if you do this. The people who do not put up lights just to attract an audience will keep putting lights up. All that we'll do is force the stupid show-offs to find another means to the attention they desperately crave. Preferably a means that doesn't cause epileptic seizures, rolling brownouts, and plane crashes.
Merry Christmas, assholes!