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I initially posted this a few years back after my dad passed away, but I realized that it seemed like a really good way to end what’s over and head into a New Year. This is the Phil Och's song, "When I'm Gone." It's not his version, though, but an absolutely exquisite cover by two groups, Kim & Reggie Harris and Magpie. I first heard it years ago when the long-running Saturday night show, The Midnight Special on the classical music station WMFT in Chicago played it as their closing song each week. They used it for a great many years, but have changed hosts in recent years, but they were still using it then. My folks absolutely loved the song. Loved it. They enjoyed The Midnight Special a great deal although they liked it more in its earlier years and not the selections as much in its (and their) later years. But they always listened and, if not always all the way through, they always made sure to listen to the ending, just to be sure to hear The Song. Though the song isn't about New Year's, it sort of overlaps with the idea of making New Year's resolutions. It's about all the things to do in life now, because this is your chance to see them through.
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To continue our festivities on the seventh night of Hanukkah, here is Adam Sandler in 1994 singing his Hanukkah song on SNL for the first time -- which was...the seventh night of Hanukkah! This is a charming and exceedingly low-key video that Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt made, singing "What are You Doing New Year’s Eve?" Not-shockingly, I figured that it was reasonably appropriate tonight. How low-key are the production values? At the end, Ms. Deschanel leans over to click off the camera. On the site, she also posts the following explanation -- "I have known Joe Gordon-Levitt for going on 12 years. We first met in the summer of 2000 while doing a tiny movie called Manic, where we bonded over a mutual appreciation for Harry Nilsson and Nina Simone and I have been lucky enough to call him one of my dearest friends ever since. When we did 500 Days of Summer 8 years later, we spent every lunch hour dancing to Marvin Gaye in the hair and make up trailer; we had loads of fun. I hope to do a thousand more movies with him because he's simply the best. But in the meantime, we made a little New Year's duet for all of you! The original by Nancy Wilson. ENJOY!" For the sake of accuracy, she's wrong about a couple of things. For starters, it is not "by" Nancy Wilson. Yes, I know she (like many singers) is referring to who recorded it, but who a song is "by" is personal bugaboo of mine. And it's especially notable here because this particular song was written by the great Broadway composer Frank Loesser (who wrote Guys & Dolls and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, among others), though it wasn't for any show or movie, just a standalone song. She's also wrong that the original was recorded by Nancy Wilson, missing by almost two decades. The original recording was performed by Margaret Whiting in 1947. (Wilson didn't record it until 1965, though she had a big hit with it, reaching #17 on the Billboard charts.) But those are details. The performance itself is the lovely point of it all -- As part of our Holiday Fest now into the Hanukkah season, we head back to SNL. For a while they had a series of periodic appearances on the Weekend Update segment where Vanessa Bayer would come on as Jacob the Bar Miztvah Boy. Her performances were deeply meticulous, gentle and wonderful. And they're impeccably written with a knowing eye. I thought I'd post a couple of them. First, here is Jacob talking about Hanukkah traditions with Weekend Update host Seth Meyers. And in her return, Jacob comes back to talk with anchor Meyers about the story of Hanukkah. There's a side of me that now sort of hopes that Trump, MAGOPs in Congress, Fox hosts and guests, and others in the Mump regime (tm Timothy Snyder) keep up this idiocy about buying Greenland, getting back the Panama Canal and making Canada the 51st state. None of it -- none, zero -- will go anywhere, nor should it. Further, it won't help people's lives in even the most remote way, it won’t deal with inflation, it doesn’t affect immigration in the slightest and it has nothing to do with health care (other than Canada's system is better than ours). And in less than just two years, enough voters straddling the middle (and who knows, maybe even some touching the near-edges of the far right) will be aghast by the clueless Trump and MAGOP dysfunction focusing so much attention on such utterly empty lunacy rather than issues that they (foolishly) thought Trump and the MAGOP Congress (entirely controlled by the Mump regime) would address to help their lives. Now, to be sure, Trump and his minions will deal with other matters, and Greenland-Panama-Canada won’t be the only things on the table. But as long as they are on the table, that will continue to shine a light on all the things not getting done…not to mention all the things getting done that his supporters are surprised by and hate. Exhibit A: the outrage in the party seeing Elon Musk pushing for allowing H-1B immigrants into the country with Trump’s support, after eight years of Trump and the party whipping up fury against immigrants to keep them out. Exhibit B: with talk from Mump regime members in Congress about cutbacks to Social Security, Medicare and food stamp, one quote leaped out. It wasn’t from anyone in the public eye, just someone interviewed by the Washington Post, a part-time tax consultant named Lori Mosura who quit the Democratic Party and switched to Trump, but is now concerned about loss in benefits. But she’s sure things will be okay because she says of Trump in words that define “delusion” -- "He is more attuned to the needs of everyone instead of just the rich...I think he knows it’s the poor people that got him elected, so I think Trump is going to do more to help us." (Me, personally, I would get a different tax consultant. That aside, though just the thoughts of one person, they overlap with much of what we’ve heard from other delusional Trump supporters, blissfully unaware that pretty much the only major legislative success that Trump had in his first term was a $3 billion tax cut for the rich. For which he promised them more in a released recording. And his main focus of concern in life, other than himself, is billionaires and strongmen dictators. Indeed, he has a lifetime of screwing “the poor people that got him elected.” Thinking Trump will do something to help us poor people misses the point that Trump disdains poor people. And when their benefits do get cut, while the Mump regime keeps going after Greenland-Panama-Canada, it’s going to be a very bad look.) Exhibit C: as a mentioned a couple weeks ago, there was a headline in a Pennsylvania newspaper, “'Gut punch': Trump upsets local union leaders by opposing U.S. Steel-Nippon deal”. Once again, just more delusional thinking by people who thought Trump was for them, and are now shocked that he’s screwing them over. While instead, he tries to buy Greenland, take back the Panama Canal and make Canada the 51st state. None of which will ever happen. Or should. But as union workers find themselves screwed over by the party will be a very bad look. Exhibit D: perhaps the funniest and most delusional exhibit of all, the ongoing public “outrage” by Trump’s sickening, yet favorite unofficial press spokesperson Laura Loomer on the warpath braying at Elon Musk and billionaires (seeming to be bizarrely unaware that such fury won’t go over well with Trump…) because Musk briefly banned her from TwixTer. But she picked up a lot of MAGOP cred during the election, and she and Steve Bannon are now together on an anti-Musk campaign. Reading news stories over the weekend about these and other dysfunction matters (like the debt limit and who the MAGOP Speaker of the House will be…again) I realized that I’ve never seen an incoming president -- one who won't even take office for a month yet -- cause so much dissension, but especially within his own party. Making this dysfunction far worse for Trump is if he and issues gets even more divisive to MAGOPs, especially if there continues to be focus on such empty, meaningless piffles as Greenland-Panama-Canada, it will begin to kick in on supporters and elected members of the party the fact that Trump is actually a lame duck. Not helped by Trump’s dementia being degenerative and will therefore get worse. SIDE NOTE: Considering that Trump’s big push is his new Musk-led “Department of Government Efficiency” supposedly wanting to cut out unnecessary jobs, eliminate cabinet positions and reduce expenses, and bring down the budget deficit to help curb inflation – I can’t even begin to imagine to how much it would explode the deficit and monumentally expand inflation out of control when factoring in the cost to buy back the Panama Canal, buy Greenland and pay off the sovereign nation of Canada to become the 51st state. Not to bring reality into the mix, of course. But I digress... I came across a very smart comment yesterday by Adam Kinzinger. It not only put the Trump focus against Greenland-Panama-Canada in sharp perspective, but other of his battles these days, as well. Kinzinger wrote – “Wonder why Trump threatens to attack allies? Because he is scared to death to show actual strength. But he can scream and yell at allies because it makes him LOOK strong to MAGAs and he will never have to actually prove it.” Which brings us back to my original observation. No, I don’t believe that Trump’s battle against our allies Greenland-Panama-Canada will become the top focus of the Mump regime (tm Timothy Snyder, since the good fellow deserves to have it repeated...) for the next two years (let alone four) -- but my dream of him and the party making it so is not an unreasonable hope. Because it’s pretty clear how dysfunctional Trump World is already, and even if not Greenland-Panama Canada, there will be other fights against allies ahead, because of that dysfunction and also for the reasons Kinzinger notes. (Along with his conclusion explaining Trump: “Again, he’s a frightened boy looking for dad’s approval”.) But also, creating chaos is a function of Trump’s emptiness – as well as a result of dementia, focusing repeatedly on the issues you know and remember and make most important. It's one thing, of course, to create this meaningless, dysfunctional, obsessive chaos when you're out of office and want to create a "need" for yourself. It's another, too, to do so when in the White House with the opposition blocking you in Congress. But picture this now with Trump's party in total control of all branches of the government, with the public expecting your administration to actually solve inflation, immigration, the budget, abortion, health care and more, with no excuse not to from the Real Stable Genius who swaggers "I alone can fix it," and starting out his new administration by already saying that inflation might stay high because lowering prices is "very hard," so instead he's going to scream and yell and attack our allies, focus on that because it's his sole skillset, and accomplish nothing that people seriously care about. And voted for, thinking -- against all reason -- that he would fix it.. Though, in the end, even if it doesn't remain the top Trump story for the next two years, I suspect Greenland-Panama-Canada will continue to hang around like all of Trump's obsessions -- from sharks to windmills to flushing toilets to crowd size to electrocution by boat batteries and more. After all, consider another of those news stories from this past weekend, one that encapsulates to much about who Trump actually is and what the public can expect ahead: Trump posted a rant on social media ludicrously complaining about how Democrats supposedly paid Beyoncé and Oprah (and Al Sharpton) for their endorsements of Kamala Harris, endorsements made many months ago...in an election he won!! Because apparently Beyoncé and Oprah need the money. And because all three just happen to be...well, Black. And because Trump has dementia, is a sociopath, and can’t ever give up on any obsession. The mid-term elections are in less than two years. November 3, 2026. Early voting will be before even that... Continuing our Holiday Music Fest during Hanukkah, we have one of best "wonderful" Hanukkah songs (a small subset of music), albeit little-known -- though it may have become one of the best known of recent years, "Hanukkah in Santa Monica," written by the great Tom Lehrer. What most people don't know is that he wrote the song for an appearance on A Prairie Home Companion with Garrison Keillor. I remember the first time I heard it while actually in Santa Monica. It was an odd, wonderful and somewhat ethereal experience Here he is with his own song -- though with a slight difference. Usually Tom Lehrer accompanies himself with a solo piano. But for the APHC appearance, the show's music director Rich Dworsky did an arrangement that has a Klezmer-like feel which makes the song all the more fun. And we have a couple of bonuses. Because the song has slowly gained in awareness over the years, there have been a few wonderful other renditions of it. And this by the Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles is one of the more fun for reasons which will soon become clear as they throw themselves into it full-bore. And though the group isn't based specifically in Santa Monica, it's all Los Angeles County and just a few miles away. So, they get a few bonus points to add to the charm. And one final bonus. This is the song performed about as appropriately as one could wish -- not just with a Klezmer-like feel, but by an actual Klezmer band, this group being Art of Time. My only quibble with the otherwise great performance is that the lead singer gets a couple words wrong, which isn't a huge deal in such an otherwise vibrant performance, except that they're rhymes. Other than that -- mazel tov! |
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. 
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