Today, I feel like drinking all the absinthe out of Toulouse-Lautrec’s private reserve and then staring into space until the barman asks me to leave because I’m making the other patrons uncomfortable.

I don’t like Mondays.

To cheer myself, I decided to revisit with some old friends.

The brilliance of this recital video is hard to describe. The genius of the uploader who decided to share it with the world is unmatched. Our emcee/commandant Reva Unsicker is amazing in her hard-driving demand that American-Idol-in-the-making John Daker sing, and sing with gusto despite the fact that he may or may not be operating with full thrusters. (His name…is John. Daker.)

When he inveitably stumbles, (and we knew he would), she can spare no time to ease him back into the song. The piano soldiers on whether John does or not. Whep! And what about that opening act? The More We Get Together? That’s some Raffi shit, not vocal student recital material.

And then, this remix elevates the whole thing to the level of mega-genius. Holy freaking cats.

Still want more? It’s hard to explain the Trololo guy. It has something to do with cowboy songs and a Russian ban on lyrics with questionable ideology and incredibly trippy lip-synching and choreography that makes Twyla Tharp look like Paula Abdul. What I’m trying to say is, I love this song, so so much. Try not to love it, too.

For instance: music videos.  In the spirit of the season, D & I stayed up way, way too late the other night finding scary music videos online.  For me, it was like revisiting those years long ago, when MTV played nothing but videos (as crazy as that might sound) and I was frightened to death by the haunting vision of Grace Jones in her Demolition Man video:

I mean, I couldn’t sleep after watching this! What nine year-old wouldn’t be terrified by an army of Grace Joneses marching toward you? They could blind you with the glare from their collective cheekbones and then eat you, raw.

For animal cruelty-themed videos, nothing is better than Peter Gabriel’s Shock the Monkey, but it just seemed a little too easy.  Instead, we settled on Games Without Frontiers, which is sort of a scary song to begin with, and then there’s that revolving baby head. Argh!

And I must note that until, um, last week or so, I thought the chorus of the song was “She’s…so popular.”  Turns out it’s not.  So, I guess she isn’t.

The Talking Heads could not be left out of Scary Video night. Burning Down The House has a pretty freaky video, but it really can’t hold a candle (har har) to Once in a Lifetime. This video had me afraid of David Byrne for years. Years.  I mean, what is he doing in this video?  The arm thing!  The head smacking thing!  The tiny-Davids-all-dancing-in-the-background thing!  And now the song is in top rotation on my ipod.  I’m just that way.

The hands down winner of the night, though, was Nine Inch Nails’ Closer. D had never seen it, so boy, was he in for a treat. I’ve seen it something like a million times, but I was surprised that I was shocked and creeped out all over again on viewing it that night. Maybe it was the late hour. Maybe it was sharing in D’s genuine shock over some of the images. Maybe it was the revolving pig’s head.

Good times, right?  What do you think we missed?  I’d love to hear how MTV scared you.  In the meantime, you can check out our entire playlist:

I cannot account for my latest obsession: Beyonce’s “Single Ladies.” It must be grief. There really is no other reason for my continued viewing of this video. No. Other. Reason.

Tired of Beyonce shaking those chunky thighs? Try this parody. The lyrics aren’t spectacular, but it’s worth a look if only to see the President spank himself around 2:35. Who can’t enjoy that?

And somehow, it all led to this. I offer no explanation.

Put your hands up.

Right.

While I am behind on a million, squillion things this December, one thing I am current and ahead of is Christmas shopping. Wait, no I’m not.

But I am all caught up on listening to Christmas music. And then some. My favorite song this year is the oldie-but-goodie, war protesting, irate hippy anthem I Believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake.

It’s been covered by U2 as well as a more recent version by Lake himself, but I prefer this 1975 recording, with Lake’s higher-pitched, intense singing voice, and disturbing end-of-the-world reverb over the “heaven or hell” part of the lyric. And don’t you love that video? The part with the kid and soldier reuniting at the end is classic Vietnam-era stuff, and I found myself filling with anxiety as I waited, and waited, and waited for that kid to finally reach the solider. C’mon…c’mon…get there already! It was too much like a recurring dream I have where I’m running and running and hardly moving a step. I needed a xanax when I was done.

My favorite performer this Christmas has to be the legendary Rick Astley. He has been rick-rolled right back into public prominence, culminating with his cheesy Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade appearance. You have to love someone willing to laugh at himself and the guy has great pipes to boot. Check out his performance of Silent Night.

The man can sing. Plus, the hand of time has not touched him at all. He looks as adorable as when Never Gonna Give You Up first came out and I taped the video and watched it over and over and over wishing I could just freeze the frame and have a picture of his face to look at all the time.

I love modern technology.

My favorite traditional carol has always been Angels We Have Heard on High. Back when I was a good Catholic girl, I sang this with my church’s choir every Christmas in a perfect SATB arrangment. I was a solid, too-loud alto and this particular arrangement had the best alto part, ever. I love singing this song. And as complex as that choir version was, this rendition played on a single ukulele is really perfect.

Lastly, I’m over-indulging in 50s crooners this year. My favorite by far is Dean Martin. He was a lackadaisical swinging hepcat (like Frank Sinatra without the mob ties) with an easy charm that made his vocals silky-smooth and creamy like butter. I’m crazy CRAZY for his version of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. I don’t what I love more about it: that he refers to Rudoph as “Rudy” throughout, or the Nazi Germany accent he uses for Santa. Aren’t you convinced yet? Watch this performance of Christmas Blues.

No one can touch Dino.