Good morning.

By now, I'm sure most of us have seen our holiday favourites. For me, the Big Three is Charlie Brown, the Grinch, and a certain quadruped of burden with a radical "non-conformity".




It's meant to be a kid's show, but of course in reality it's a crypto-fascist metaphor for racism and commercial exploitation in the United States.

Poor Rudolph - a newborn at that - his first encounter with the White Man is his lord and master come to inspect his newest animal-slave. He's quickly made aware of a crushing abnormality in the fawn, and immediately rejects him and blames his father. Not an encouraging start.

Unsurprisingly, he is soon ostracized by his peers, and further separated by every adult authority figure he meets.

Meanwhile, a humanoid slave in a nearby sweatshop is having "motivational issues". He too is castigated by the bosses, and starts to work in subversive ways to undermine production. He too is quickly identified and outcast.

Somehow the two of them meet up, and a great adventure takes place. Key to it all is their anthem, "Why am I such a misfit". Sensing they've both been dealt a bad hand, they sing this key lyric:



This is the ultimate questioning of authority within the boundaries of this tale.

Of course, we know the rest. Rudolph and Herbie journey around the world, raising an army of followers. They denounce Santa and his evil empire, and with the help of a multi-national coalition, invade and destroy those institutions forever.

But of course not. Rudolph returns at a key moment in time, and Santa suddenly has "need" for a radioactive mutant. Suddenly, Rudolph is everyone's friend. But it's just for one night, and after he flies off into the night, we are never aware of what became of Rudolph after that singular need. Herbie hardly fares better. His master grudgingly "allows" him to open his dentistry shop. We never find out if it is successful or not.

Of course, all of this is a rather lengthy introduction for the annual music blog. You'll want to check out this video, as it sums up musically what I've written above. There is some commentary, before and after the actual song.



But since it is the Saturday before the holiday, I know you all came here for the blog's now-official Christmas Tune.



Have a good one out there!