The 100 Least Influential People in the World.

This week, Time Magazine released its annual list of the Most Influential People in the World: Obama, Rubio, apparently Tilda Swindon, blah, blah, blah. What was even better was in 2010, when Joel Stein made his list of the LEAST influential people in response.

Inspired by anyone who can write about Mayor McCheese & still keep a job at the nation's leading (remaining?) news magazine is an influence to me.

So don't worry, Joel, you won't be on my list. I may have to steal Mayor McCheese though. (In fact, he's #57.)

1. Mitt Romney: You came, you saw, you conked out. Thanks for playing. You can get a copy of the home game. Which for you is Monopoly.

2. Clint Eastwood's Chair: The Good: Best Performance Art EVER; The Bad: Upstaged Romney at his own nomination; The Ugly: …& proved far more memorable.

3. Charlton Heston's Cold, Dead Hand: Perfect to take on that cold, dead bad hand with a gun.

4. The Compact Disc: The newest MacBook doesn't even have a disc drive, meaning hipsters can't even play discs ironically.

5. Amanda Bynes: The Lindsay Lohan of class.

6. Lindsay Lohan: The Amanda Bynes of grace.

7. Johnny AppleMaps: Whoever the guy was that invented AppleMaps. Presumably more than happy to stay Apple-nonymous. Hey, Johnny, how do you like them—well, you know.

8. Marian Robinson: Her son-in-law is the President, her daughter is the First Lady, & she lives in the White House with both of them, but we have no idea what she does all day. Even "Miss Lil" Carter didn't know when to keep her mouth shut.

9. Taylor Kitsch: Starred in "John Carter," the biggest bomb of all-time. Was last seen trying to legally change his last name to Lautner.

10. Manti Te'o's Girlfriend: They say she never existed, but I bet she's just using that as an excuse.

11. Dennis Rodman: You take a crazy ex-basketball star & send him to an even crazier dictator who hates us, & guess what?—diplomacy fails & crazy dictator still hates us.

12. Every "American Idol" Winner Since Carrie Underwood: You know who you are. Cuz we as sure as hell don't.

13. Walter Mondale: Now that McGovern has passed, our nation's oldest-living also-ran. By election year. If we went by age, it'd be…

14. Bob Dole: So un-influential, the ailing former made a rare appearance in Congress to urge his fellow Republicans to vote for a disabilities bill, & they still didn't.

15. Tom from MySpace: Old: "Facebook is just MySpace without the ads!" New: "Twitter is like Facebook without the people I don't care about!" Which leaves Tom…hanging out with Billy Friendster?

16. Todd Akin: Ah, the perils of "The Rapes of Wrath."

17. Todd Palin: The First Dude of…well, Juneau?—cuz I sure as hell don't. But if not, Alaska!

18. Khloe Kardashian: Not the Kanye one. & not the one with Scott Dick-whatever. & not the "it's hard being made fun of for being thin & beautiful" or her underage non-identical, non-twin sister. Still not sure? Exactly.

19. The Benedict Formally Known As Pope: Still waiting for the groundbreaking on the Pope-idential Museum. 1st of its time since Gregory XII!

20. All of the Original Cast Members of "Barney & Friends" Who're Not Demi Lovato: &, if we're being honest with ourselves, Demi Lovato most of the time, too.

21. Connor Kennedy: So uninspiring that not even Taylor Swift has bothered to write a song about him. Yet.

22. Former Supreme Court Justice Stevens: What does he do all day now? & more importantly, does he still do it while wearing a bow-tie?

23. Flo from the Progressive ads: She seems nice enough, but those thing make me want to never buy Progressive out of principle. & if THAT'S not a lack of influence, I'll never know it.

24. Ann Romney: "You people" really know how to pick a classy First Lady. & her name is Michelle.

25. Susan Rice: Like the Secretary of State, but not.

26. Tan Mom: Finally, her name in print in a way that doesn't make me retch.

27. Scott Brown: Bqhatevwr happened to baby pain? "The Professor" made him look like Mary Ann, that's what. Speaking of which…

28. Russell Johnson: Played a professor who could make a transistor out of coconuts but couldn't fix a hole in a boat. & he was the show's straight mam.

29. Dawn Wells: We all know that Tina "Ginger" Louise gave up acting for helping underprivileged school kids (by everyone, I mean kids in the '90s who had nothing better to do than watch reruns of the E! True Hollywood Story). Aw, who am I kidding? Dawn "Mary Ann" Wells was always the hotter one, & that gets her a free pass for life. But it also makes her uninfluential. Oh crap, do I really have the most to say about Dawn Wells?!

30. John Edwards: The slut who could've been vice-president. Until his slutty ways surfaced THERE instead of on the campaign trail. Bullet, consider yourself dodged.

31. Skeeter Muppet: The only Muppet Baby to never be an actual Muppet, which, with the second Muppet movie coming out, is proving to be a hot commodity. But the fact no one even noticed she wasn't there says it all.

32. Everybody in George Zimmerman's Family: & probably George Zimmerman too. Just a shot in the dark.

33. Mike Doonesbury: Upstaged by his own daughter, Alex, who takes over the strip. Not that you can really tell the difference. Wait, maybe Alex Doonesbury should be on the list…?

34. Ringo Starr: The Adele of Least Influential Lists, & he still can't play a standard roll—in the deep, or anywhere else.

35. Cecilia Gimenez: The 80-year-old Spanish lady who "restored" the ancient Christ fresco so that he looked like a monkey. What WOULD Darwin Do?

36. The Twinkie: Any still left on the shelf must be like WAAAY past their expiration date by now.

37. Coolio: Saw him on "Celebrity Wife Swap" & you might just think he's a washed up prick, but he's not. He's a washed-up SELF-DELUDED prick.

38. Bo Obama: Last seen in the president's "This is how dog-lovers ride with their dogs" anti-roofrack Romney meme. Eagerly awaits the next GOP dog-centered "scandal."

39. Dick Morris: Sorry Dick, you can't predict a Romney landslide & not expect to make this list—although you wouldn't have been able to predict THAT either…

40. George W. Bush's Painting Teacher: Assuming this person exists, though hoping that they don't…

41. Herman Caine: Your 9-9-9 minutes of fame are up, like 9-9-9 months ago.

42. The King of the Green Pigs in "Angry Birds": The only thing he's king of when I'm playing is getting his ass popped!

43. Viktoria Komova: Learned the hard way that "DOUGLAS" rearranges to "GOLD USA" for a reason.

44. Allen West: If you forget his name & Google "Tea Party Rep who lost," he's not even on the 1st page that comes up, though I'm sure he'll demand a recount.

45. Donald Trump's Hair: Proof that money can buy power & fame, but not necessarily a decent hairstyle. Unless you're into dead amber-hued badgers.

46. Luise Rainer: The first person to win back-to-back Oscars—Best Actress in 1936 & 1937—is still alive & living in France at 103. There. Now you know.

47. Buster Douglas: Beat Tyson in 1988 but never got a crumb of Tyson's fame—or maybe I'm still bitter because by the time my parents finally bought me "Mike Tyson's Punch-Out" for Nintendo, it had already been retitled simply "Punch-Out."

48. Michael D. Brown: The former FEMA head who did a "heck of a job" with Katrina, criticizes the FEMA work in Sandy. Hey pot, kettle called. He said "black."

49. Ben Carson's Publicist. You've heard of a no-spin zone? This guy lives in a no-win zone.

50. Mitt Romney's "Binders Full of Women": When outreach becomes ouch-reach.

51. Dan Quayle: Can't make a list like this without Dan Quayle!

52. Jack Kemp: Can't leave him out either! What's that, he's dead? Um, Geraldine Ferraro? Her too? Can we do Dan Quayle again? OK, fine, Marilyn Quayle.

53. Pete Rose: Hasn't been relevant since the 1st Bush Administration. Need proof? He recently got his own cable TV reality show.

54. Richard Roeper: One-time Siskel fill-in, who's outlived Ebert. But has anyone actually ever seen him & Leonard Maltin together in the same room at the same time? Yeah, that's what I thought.

55. Laraine Newman: The only original SNL cast member you can't name. Hell, even Garrett Morris is now on "2 Broke Girls."

56. Anthony Wiener: 100% name recognition + 15% support = 0% shot at being mayor. Even of a land comprised of talking cheeseburgers.

57. Mayor McCheese: Joel Stein, 2010: "'I'm not aware of his stance on a single issue.' — Ross Autry, personal advisor to this project on Facebook, where I asked for help from anyone. Hey, 100 is a lot of people." Amen to that.

58. Cap'n Crunch: As Joey points out on "Friends," his eyebrows hover mysteriously above his head; as Chandler points out, he's the captain of a cereal. Hey, 100 IS a lot of people.

59. Gary Sandy: A.K.A. Andy Travis from "WKRP in Cincinnati." Baby, I do ever wonder, wonder whatever became of you. Although I do wonder even more about Bailey Quarters. Nerd crush!

60. Jan Smithers: A.K.A. Bailey Quarters. Yeah, I figured what the hell.

61. Newsweek: The super-duper old, well, news-weekly ceased publication this year. So why does it still appear from time to time on my Twitter timeline?! It's like the Hamlet's Ghost of media.

62. Mitt Romney's Tax Accountant: So undistinguished, we're not even sure if he exists.

63. Kim Zolciak: "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" who became sorta-famous for a sorta-hit that she sorta-maybe doesn't have the rights to. Don't be tardy for the court date!

64. Bill, the Singing Bill from "Schoolhouse Rocks!": Clearly not getting through to the 113rd Congress.

65. The Human Attention Span: Thanks to Twitter, Facebook, & texting, no one can focus long enough to complete a

66. The Citizens of "Mandyville": Namely, Chuck, the older brother on "Happy Days," Judy, the younger sister on "Family Matters," & of course, President Bartlett's advisor Mandy, on "West Wing." Gone but not forgotten. But just barely.

67. Bing!: Not even a freak-Easter Google Doodle-gate non-scandal could keep anyone's interest for more than 36 hours.

68. Cesar Chavez's Publicist: When the American public can't tell Cesar Chavez from Hugo Chavez, we've got a problem (see above).

69.Marco Rubio's Water Bottle: Chugged faster than a shot of whiskey! Can dash presidential ambitions in a single gulp! Look, across the studio: It's absurd! It's inane! It's—

70. George Lazenby: At the half-century mark of the franchise, is it too redundant to call him the "George Lazenby" of James Bond's?

71. Patty Hearst: Commuted by Jimmy Carter (in 1979), pardoned by Bill Clinton (as his last official act as president in 2001), & guest-starred on "Veronica Mars" (which went off the air in 2007), she's lately been resigned to pop culture purgatory: Voice-over work.

72. Teddy Ruxbin: His coffin was nailed shut by last year's megahit "Ted," but the fact is he could never think for himself. That, & he was creepy as hell.

73. J.K. Rowling's Adult Fiction Editor: Clearly a person who needs to learn how to wield more influence.

74. Mark McGuire's "500" Baseball: Kids, don't take steroids or else you'll get…an asterisk?

75. Tagg Romney: "I wanna strike the president" = Tagg, you're [sh]it! Inspired a great subplot of "New Girl," though, with Schmidt "Tugg" Romney.

77. Gavin McLeod: Murray on "Mary Tyler Moore," the captain of "The Love Boat," &…?

78. Meatloaf: Serenading Mitt Romney with a version of "America, The Beautiful" that makes Romney look like Ray Charles is the most memorable thing he's done since playing a guy named "Bitch Tits" (sorry, his name was Robert Paulson) 13 years ago—& that includes last year's "comeback" album.

79. Disco Stu: "Disco Stu doesn't in-flu-ence."

80. Regular Broadcast Television: Thanks to the advent of TiVo & Netflix, the once most-regulated medium (certain episodes at certain times) has become the most democratic (entire seasons at any time you wish). Assuming you're under 60.

81. Whichever Member(s) of the Academy Didn't Vote to Nominate Ben Affleck for Best Director: This monkey-wrenched one of the strongest recent years in film, guaranteeing Argo Best Picture. Affleck's gain is Lincoln's loss. & ours.

82. Justin Bieber's Monkey: Or, the closest Bieber will ever get to Michael Jackson.

83. Richard II: No one bothers to remember his Shakespeare's play, but then again, no one verifies his crippled remains under a parking lot either. Note to Dicky II: Get thy hunchbacked uncle's publicist.

85. ` --> That Apostrophe That's Not An Apostrophe in the Upper-Left Corner of the Keyboard under the ESC Key: Seriously, I have to jump through hoops to get a "¢" but this one's out there for free?!

86. The Guy Who Used To Host ElimiDate: Am I really so petty to include a TV host I couldn't stand from an 11-year-old reality show when I can't even find his name since he seems to have been completely scrubbed from the Internet record? In a word, yes.

87. Stacey Dash: If this is the Republicans' idea of rebranding, they really are "clueless."

88. Peter Frampton: Kids today are baffled by the fact that the Velvet Underground didn't sell in their day. But they're even more baffled that "Frampton Comes Alive!" DID.

89. YOU: If Time Magazine can fill up a "Person of the Year" slot with this, surely I can fill up a Least Influential Person slot with this. Just as long as anyone from their Most Influential list doesn't read this. Best & Brightest, consider yourselves warned.

90. Jamie Farr: Klinger from TV's "M*A*S*H." Still bucking for that Section 8, only now he does it on TVLand.

91. Levi Johnston: Doing a "Least Influential" list without this guy is like watching "The Hills" without guilt.

92. Heidi Montag: File this one under "Because I can."

92. Spenser Pratt: File this one under "Because I f*cking can."

93. Eliot Spitzer: Or, how NOT to be a governor in one call-girl or less. Actually, more.

95. Oliver North: Some three decades after Iran-Contra, he's reinvented himself as a cable news pundit, still without a—wait for it!—SHRED of decency.

96. John Sununu: Former Bush I press secretary wishes Obama would learn how to be an American. Funny John, I was wishing the same thing about you.

97. The First Two Seasons of "Teen Mom": Coming to a "Where Are They Now?" tabloid spread in a supermarket checkout line near you.

98. The Good Guy With A Gun Looking For Wayne LaPierre: Work faster, FASTER!

99. Rafalca Romney: Loser horse for a loser candidate, but still the smaller horse's ass.

100. George W. Bush: Getting ready the only presidential library where the papers were all written in crayon.

Why Dr. Teeth & The Electric Mayhem Are The Greatest Band EVER.

1. Everyone knows the best rock bands are fake. The Mayhem just take it to the next level.

2. Versatility—what other band could've backed Elton John, Alice Cooper, Linda Ronstadt, Blondie, John Denver, Paul Simon, Johnny Cash, AND slip into a perfect rendition of Brubeck's "Take Five" just for a throwaway gag when Dudley Moore asks them to take, well, you know…

3. Can't pick which era to listen to? The Mayhem lets you choose "All Of The Above"! We got a hippie (Janis), a glam-star (Dr. Teeth), an acid-rock artiste (Floyd Pepper), a jazzman (Zoot), a heavy metal drum arsenal (Animal), & a piano-playing dog who's equally at home with classical, ragtime, or pop (Rowlf).

4. No chance of Monkees-type scandals cuz it's an accepted fact they can't play on their own records.

5. Speaking of which, the record industry is dead. & they haven't released an album since the Reagan Administration.

6. Autotune?! We don't need no stinkin' autotune!!

7. Only half of the band have eyeballs. & you think YOUR group is badass.

8. They're aging much more gracefully than The Stones & aren't dying off like The Who.

9. One chick who's white, one guy who's brown—plus a green guy, a blue guy, a purple guy, & a red guy. These guys were PC before it even existed!

10. They got a drummer who makes John Bonham look like Mr. Rogers.

The Oscars: A Month Late & A Lincoln Short.

There are two types of motion pictures: Films & Movies. Films are art made for the ages; Movies are summer diversions made for the popcorn. Thus, The Greatest Film Ever Made is Citizen Kane, while The Greatest Movie Ever Made is King Kong. (Note to self: Make a motion picture named Kane Kong just to watch my own head explode.) Just as the history of Western Civilization is wrought with the human species being torn between extremes—the fine literature & the dimestore pulp; the fine art & the dirty pictures; the church organ & the bawdyhouse piano—so too is the motion picture industry. (Is there any other reason why the Criterion Collection includes The Seventh Seal & The Blob?!)

Enter the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences & their Oscars, a so-called yardstick to represent greatness. But of course, an Academy is only as good as its members, & if there's anyplace in the world torn between high art & low living, it's Los Angeles.

Such was the case for this last round of Oscars. As I wrote in my 2012 year-end wrap-up, the Greatest Movie of the Year was Argo, but the Greatest Film of the Year was Lincoln. But then, just like the Bystander Effect that killed Kitty Genovese (or the that Simpsons episode where Bart loses class president because everyone in the class assumed that everyone  would vote for him), Ben Affleck was not nominated for Best Director for Argo. For the next month straight, it was his ticket to winning Best Director at every other awards show, which then would give Argo Best Picture as a sort of icing on the cake.

Now, clearly the Academy screwed up here. Ben Affleck should've been nominated for Best Director, & had he been, the smart money would've been on him & he would've deserved it to. But Argo as Best Picture?! Nope, sorry. Shoulda never happened.

Making a great Movie is almost as difficult as making a great Film, but at the end of the day, it's almost always the Film that should win out. The clearest recent case of this is in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love beat out Saving Private Ryan for Best Picture. Ten years on, when AFI did its 100 Years...100 Movies: 10th Anniversary list, Saving Private Ryan debuted at #71 while Shakespeare in Love was nowhere to be found.

Now don't get me wrong. There are definitely rare times when a Movie should beat out a Film. It would've been awesome if Raiders of the Lost Ark had beaten Chariots of Fire & an argument can definitely be made for Star Wars beating out Annie Hall (& I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Annie Hall, but an argument can be made nonetheless). I dated a girl whose mom refused to watch Gandhi simply because it had beaten out E.T. We all have our limits.

Muddying the water are Films that seem like Movies & Movies that seem like Films. This is the case when Brokeback Mountain—a Film's Film if there ever was one (at least in our postmodern vernacular), it was somehow beaten by Crash, a stupid Movie masquerading as a serious Film. I'll also always hold that Titanic is a Movie with all of the trappings of a Film, although in this case, it was the rare Movie worthy of winning Best Picture, although I'll always find it more ridiculous than gut-wrenching. Sometimes a Film beats a Film, true—think Citizen Kane's infamous loss to How Green Was My Valley—but often the most exciting (& controversial) races pit a Film against a Movie.

Which brings us back to this past year. Now, had Affleck been nominated for Best Director, he would've won & then Lincoln would've gotten Best Picture. But instead, Affleck was able to ride his snub all the way to the final award, leaving the vastly superior Lincoln without a crown.

Because if I was a betting man, I'd bet that when the AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies: 20th Anniversary list comes out in 2017, Argo will be nowhere in sight.

& Lincoln will be somewhere around #71.

The Best of 2012.

"Go ahead, make my chair."

Much to the Mayans' chagrin, the world moves on from 2012 to 2013.

Here were the things that made it worth living through:

Best Film: Lincoln.

What happens when the greatest living director teams up with the greatest living actor to tell the story of America's greatest-ever president? Something close to perfection. By focusing in on Lincoln's struggle to get the 13th Amendment passed over a precious few weeks, Lincoln tells the story of an entire man's life & the modern nation he helped bring into being. The lines blur between history, drama, comedy, & tragedy in a way that few films have been able to achieve. & at the center of it all is Lincoln, who plots, plans, theorizes, schemes, schmoozes, & charms his actions into a singular gesture of political genius.

Best Movie: Argo.

Films aside, it's been a great year for movies—The Avengers, The Hunger Games, & Dark Knight Rises all somehow lived up to their hype & more, but for me, Argo stood above the rest as a testament to great movie-making. It probably has to do with the fact that, at its center, Argo is a love-letter to the movie industry. In spinning an essentially-true tall-tale about a government agent who frees a group of Americans in Iran by posing them as a film-crew scouting a sci-fi B-movie, actor/director Ben Affleck never lets up as he takes you along for the ride—& near-failures—of his elaborate sting operation. Many critics have noted that the movie also sets up the modern Middle Eastern world, but would anyone care if it wasn't super-fun to watch? As the man said, Argo f_ck yerself.

Best Television Show: Community.

2012 has been a renaissance year for the art form known as the sitcom. Parks & Recreation is the most charming, New Girl is the most improved, Happy Endings is the most consistent, but Community is most progressive, which for me is why it takes the cake. Not since Seinfeld has a mainstream sitcom pushed the boundaries as much as Community, & its 2011-2012 third season was its weirdest & most wonderful yet. Each episode was often little more than a shell for a 22-minute experiment: One episode was a spot-on send-up of Law & Order, another had the characters breaking out into song Glee-style, & yet another took place entirely inside a video game designed in the 1980s. But standing above them all was "Remedial Chaos Theory," in which the episode reveals 7 different alternate realities unfolding depending on who answers the door to get a pizza. Yeah, like everything else in Community's self-referential little world, it has to be seen to be understood, but once yer in, you are in.

Best Song: "We Are Never Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift.

Every once in a while, an instant anthem comes out that captures the imagination by knocking down walls simply by existing. Here we have a country star-turned-pop diva, embracing her stardom with a knowing wink to the hipsters who she'll never be cool enough for, & beating/joining them with a sound, look, & video that sounds like it was masterminded by Wes Anderson's kid brother. The video is the stunner—a rare one-shot masterpiece (check my list of the best ones here)—walking the line between sleek pop & cool rock in a wholly stylish & stylized way. Oh yeah, & the fact that it was sinking into the national consciousness right around the time when Mitt Romney was breaking up with the Republican Party didn't hurt.

Best Book: Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, by Jon Meacham.

Disclosure: I have not read this book. But it's about Thomas Jefferson & by Jon Meacham, so what's not to love? Plus, it's got "Art" in the title. Love it already. All I need to do is finish my copy of Goodwin's Team of Rivals & then read Chernow's Washington: A Life (which has been on deck fer a year now—if only I could read as fast as I could spout Elvis fun facts!), & then I'll go out & buy my copy. & then read it. But aside from that minor detail, this book is phenomenal.

Best Stage Performance: Death of a Salesman, with Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Disclosure #2: I did not see this play. But I have a good friend who saw it & said it was great. I think this is the greatest play in American history, so I know I woulda loved it. Plus, it had the creepy cult dude from The Master & Spiderman from Spiderman, both of which I did see this year. The Master was pretty f_cked up, but Hoffman is compelling as always, & Spiderman was great, although truth be told I could watch a movie featuring Emma Stone reading a phonebook & I'd probably be just as contented. Now how can we get Emma Stone into a production of Death of a Salesman...?

Best Game: Angry Birds.

There are two types of people in the world: People who are addicted to Angry Birds & people who've never tried playing it. Cuz once you start, you can't stop—it's SOOO much better than thinking.

Best Website: Twitter.

"Hey there newspapers, TV, & radio punditry! Sorry I took all yer jobs! I am all-powerful! I'd write more, but I only have 140 characters!"

Best Reissue: Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968.

What's the most influential rock album that had never before been available as a stand-alone CD? Nuggets. Masterminded by Lenny Kaye (guitarist & leader of the Patti Smith Group), this was a collection of garage rock that took the music just to the cusp of punk, yes, but it was also a freakshow of hits, misses, & rarities culled from the cutout bins of rock & roll—a fuzz-tone medicine show put on by all of the losers, fakers, wanna-be's, one-hit wonders, & no-hit wonders that took the chance at 15 seconds of fame in the spotlight. Despite making every definitive Rolling Stone list from the '80s onward, the album was nowhere to be found until Rhino reissued it as the first disc of a four-disc boxed set in the mid-'90s. Now for the first time, you can get it just by itself, & bask in a weird, weird underworld of '60s rock that wouldn't be caught dead on a Time-Life informercial.

Best Performance Art Piece: Clint Eastwood's RNC Speech.

Q: What do you get when you cross a grizzled actor, a national convention, & a chair?

A: Art. (You also get history—never before had the nominee of a national convention been upstaged...by an empty chair.)

The Top 5 Best Christmas Songs of the Rock & Roll Era.

Rock & Roll & Christmas music have always made for strange bedfellows.

Rock is the symbol of Dionysian excess while Christmas is the time of year for joy & peace. Throw in the fact that Christmas music is generally bright, chipper, & cheery—3 words that don't describe any of the greatest rock songs. Thus, most of the first generation of rock Christmas music ("Jingle Bell Rock," "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," etc.) sucks.

However, ever since the Big Bang of Rock & Roll Christmas music—1957's Elvis's Christmas Album—there has been a surprising number of decent rock tunes to come out of the season, whether jingled or not.

This isn't a list of Christmas carols—no Elvis singing "Silent Night" or Springsteen singing "Santa Claus Is Back in Town"—these are songs from the rock era that were new at the time of recording. Hence, even Elvis's masterful "Blue Christmas" is omitted because it was a cover of a relatively-unknown country song before Elvis put it over the top.

These 5 songs stand the test of time & prove that good Christmas things can come wrapped in rock packages.

5. "Little Saint Nick" By The Beach Boys (Christmas 1963)

More than anyone else before The Beatles, The Beach Boys had an instantly-recognizable sound to their hits, a polished & professional vibe that instantly evoked surfer days & summer nights. What's so great about their first Christmas single, "Little Saint Nick," is that it doesn't sound like it's gonna be a Christmas song—those first few seconds always trick me into being just "another" classic Beach Boys production. In this way, the song reminds me of Chuck Berry's "Run, Run Rudolph" in terms of pioneering the concept that a rock Christmas song could sound more like rock than Christmas—& indeed, Berry's tune nearly made the list in this one's place. But in the end, I went for The Beach Boys because it hints at the lush, professional productions that were only enhanced by studio technology & psychedelic drugs. As such, it is a small indicator of where they were going to go. On a high-speed sled.

4. "All I Want for Christmas Is You" By Mariah Carey (Christmas 1994)

I can't stand Mariah Carey. In my mind, there are three things that redeem her: She seems to have a refreshingly healthy Hollywood marriage & family, she did a great job in the film Precious, & this song. What makes it all the more remarkable is what a recent song this is—so far, there are few songs from the '90s that could be described as "timeless." This is one. Part of what makes it hang together so well is how much it is rooted in the '50s—not in a cheap cash-in Happy Days kinda way, but in a thorough, evocative way capturing the spirit of the decade, not all that unlike from the vibe Bruce Springsteen hit when he first came out & was proclaimed "Rock & Roll Future." Like the best rock & pop music, the song feels eternally youthful, while seemingly feeling like it has been around forever. It is also, for my money, the best thing to come out of Mariah Carey's 27-octive voice.

3. "Santa Claus Is Back in Town" By Elvis Presley (Christmas 1957)

It used to be that rock was rock & Christmas was Christmas. That all changed in 1957, when Elvis's Christmas Album hit the shelves. With it, Elvis brought rock & roll—real rock, none of that Connie Francis junk—to Christmas, as well as just enough schmaltz to keep grandma happy too. For, even though there were scrubbed-up readings of "Little Town of Bethlehem" & "I'll Be Home for Christmas," it was the bold opener, a new song called "Santa Claus Is Back in Town," that set things straight. With its talk of a big black Cadillac & a pretty baby, it lingers on the edge of self-parody but is saved by the band's rousing performance & Elvis's perfect conviction (not that the two can really be separated—just listen to Elvis growl over the beginning of the killer piano solo). Everything peaks at one line, perhaps the filthiest to ever appear on a best-selling Christmas album: "Hang up your pretty stockings/turn out the light/Santa Claus is coming [cumming?] down your chimney tonight!" Not sure how that one got past the censors, but so glad that it did—"Santa Claus Is Back in Town" isn't just one of Elvis's finest Christmas songs, it's one of his most exciting & exhilarating performances, period.

2. "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" By John Lennon (Christmas 1971)*

*NOTE: The sound quality in this video SUCKS, but the only original version that hadn't been taken down had pictures of children during war. I decided that crummy audio quality was better than kids during wartime.

"So this is Christmas." With those four words, begins rock & roll's first great existential Christmas song. It's become so overplayed & over-covered & over analyzed (of which I too am guilty, as in my article positing it being a subconscious plagiarism of Johnny Ace's "Pledging My Love" here), that it's easy to forget just how much it pulls off in a few minutes of running time: It manages to be both personal (the whispered "Happy Christmas" greetings to John & Yoko at the beginning) & universal ("for black & for white", "the old & the young," etc.), optimistic ("A very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year!") & cynical ("So, Happy Christmas."), sometimes all at once—the famous "War is over—If you want it!" refrain, sung amongst the ringing Christmas choruses, by school children who sound so earnest that it takes a listen or two to even figure out what they're saying. It's little wonder that the song ends with a happy burst of applause—if this was a show, it was a successful one, & all the reviews have been raves.

1. "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" By Darlene Love (Christmas 1963)

After spending years perfecting the rock single in 3-minute epics like the Crystals' "He's a Rebel" & The Ronettes' "Be My Baby," Phil Spector turned his attention to a rare album project. Born the day after Christmas, Spector was always very into the holiday & its music—& indeed, the tidal wave of drums, strings, horns, vocals, & bells gives his signature "Wall of Sound" an ideal canvas. So after spending months laboring over & perfecting it, A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector was released: On November 22, 1963. The assassination of John F. Kennedy on the exact same day took this album as a casualty as well. As a result, the album was buried before it was even born, along with this track, its crown jewel. It would take over 25 years for it to become the hit standard that it has rightfully become when it was featured prominently in 1990's Home Alone. Luckily, the age didn't show one bit. Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" proves itself to be as timeless as any other of Spector's signature hits.

The Day George Washington Died.

Today is a day that tragedy struck in American History.

On December 14, 1799, George Washington, the Father of Our Country & the First President of the United States, passed away from a throat infection in his Mount Vernon home at the age of 69.

He was the only president to both live & die in the 18th Century.

Convinced he would die at a young age like all men in his family before him, Washington not only lived, but—after having several horses shot out from under him in battle—at times would wonder if he wasn't perhaps invincible. Still, he worried about a premature death.

His fatal illness came about after he insisted to do his daily inspection of Mount Vernon even though it was cold & rainy (once a surveyor, always a surveyor, it seems).

It's tempting to look back & say, "If only he had listened to his family & servants & stayed home that day," etc., but history has a way of making our minds up for us—if only in retrospect.

Perhaps he was worried about something in particular that day; perhaps he was obsessive with his property; perhaps he sensed it was his time (or close to it, anyway) & felt he already had been living on borrowed time for too long in the first place.

We'll never know the motive.

But we'll never forget the result.

From the sketchiest flicker of psychological shadow comes the darkest truths etched in tombstone: George Washington would die on December 14, 1799.

By that point, the town of Newtown, Connecticut, had already existed for 95 years.

The Top 5 Worst Christmas Songs of All-Time.

’Tis the season to hear the same damn Christmas songs over & over again.

Let’s face it, somewhere between the day after Thanksgiving & the first week of December, we’re already sick of about 95% of all Christmas music ever recorded. Even the stuff that we haven’t heard. Even the stuff that hasn’t been recorded yet.

But like Dante, we are all drawn to extremes—& even at that, we are fascinated by evil. (I mean, who actually reads any part of Dante’s The Divine Comedy besides The Inferno?) Even in the merriest time of the year, evil lurks just one step away, just like how “Santa” is an anagram for “Satan.”

With that in mind, I’d like to present a list of the Top 5 Worst Christmas Songs of All-Time:

5. “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” by Band Aid (Christmas 1984)

Yes, this song was written & raised money for a very worthy cause—relief for the 1984-1985 famine in Ethiopia—& became the UK’s best-selling single ever up to that time & providing the blueprint for U.S.A. for Africa’s “We Are the World,” all of which takes away from the fact that “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” is a very dumb song. Built on a strange premise (I mean, would the famine victims know it’s Christmas even if they weren’t starving?), it manages to feel both over-worked & unfinished, while remaining a structural mess. The words range from overdramatic (“& the Christmas bells that ring there are the clanging chimes of doom”) to obvious (“And there won’t be snow in Africa this Christmastime…”), until the record builds to Bono singing the cruelest words ever heard in a Christmas song: “Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you!” Maybe we should be asking if the record’s producers knew it was Christmastime at all.

4. “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” by Spike Jones (Christmas 1948)

Almost as old as the Christmas song is the Christmas novelty song, which have formed a long & proud American tradition in & of themselves. Some, like Elmo & Patsy’s “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer,” are stubborn classics in their own right, but most of them are disposable junk that should be thrown out along with the empty boxes & shred up wrapping paper. This song strikes a rare balance between the 2—a stubborn classic that nonetheless shoulda never been heard more than once (let alone a number-one hit more than once, which it was in both 1948 & 1949). Now don't get me wrong, I freaking love Spike Jones. He is an unsung pioneer of American music, boldly mixing highbrow & low, jazz & classical, comedy & pop into the likes of something both singular & timeless (just check out my American Wolf article about his masterful “Cocktails for Two” here). But make no mistake about it: “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” sucks.

3. “Jingle Bell Rock” by Bobby Helms (Christmas 1957)

Somewhere between when Elvis had his first number one hit in 1956 & when he got drafted into the army in 1958, rock & roll music went from something significant & menacing to something, well, less significant & less menacing. One of the indicators of the trend was this early Christmas-&-pop/rock fusion, which took a half-decent idea & watered it down like cheap eggnog. (A similar offender would be Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” the following year, although that song sounds like heavy metal compared to this one.) There’s an annoying stench of cuteness and opportunism that undercuts any impact the song may have in favor of finger-poppin’, head-boppin’ fun. Plus I jingle hate the jingle way the jingle lyrics jingle every other jinglin’ word, all of which gives the song a poetry & grace on par with Chubby Checker’s “Limbo Rock” & Herman’s Hermits’ “I’m Henry the Eighth I Am.” When all put together, “Jingle Bell Rock” is far closer to “Jingle Bell” than “Rock”—& that’s never a good thing.


“Christmas Wrapping” by The Waitresses (Christmas 1981)

There was a strange period between the Sugar Hill Gang’ “Rapper’s Delight” & Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five “The Message” where rap was seen as the cool new thing that any random (read: white) new waver could do & prove their street cred. Sadly, this was rarely the case; just check the less-than-dope skillz of Adam & The Ants’ “Ant Rap,” Blondie’s “Rapture,” or The Clash’s “The Magnificent Seven.” But in the sweepstakes of unfortunate new-wave rap music, The Waitress’ “Christmas Wrapping” surely wins the prize. Everything about it is wrong, from its rapping/wrapping titular pun all the way through the cheesy production values & deadpan non-vocals that sound like far closer to the melodic tunelessness of The Shaggs & the lyrical aimlessness of The Streets than anything Grandmaster Flash would touch with a 12-inch record. Unfortunately for Christmas, it would be another 6 long years before Run-D.M.C.’s “Christmas in Hollis” would give the holiday its first rap classic.


1. “Wonderful Christmastime” by Paul McCartney (Christmas 1979)

How is it possible that the man behind many of The Beatles’ finest pop songs—“Yesterday,” “Hey Jude,” “Let It Be”—& the driving force behind the most memorable parts of the Beatles’ twin masterpieces—the “Sgt. Pepper” concept of Sgt. Pepper & the long medley on Abbey Road—could’ve written & recorded this, one of the most awful songs ever made? The production plays like a sneak preview of everything that would be wrong with pop music in the ’80s—sparse, echoing synthesizers that sound like a David Bowie/Brian Eno collaboration stripped for parts & run through a garbage disposal. For a song that purports to be a celebration of how wonderful Christmastime is, it sounds surprisingly cold & empty. Add to that the almost non-melody of the verse, the lazy descending bridge about the children singing, and the cloying, broken record-sounding “Simply having a wonderful Christmastime” refrain, & see if you can get it out of your head before next Easter. The song ultimately defies itself: When it is playing, it is literally impossible to simply have a wonderful Christmastime.