You there, boy, what day is it?

Screenshot of ‘Scrooge’ courtesy YouTube

Why it’s Christmas Day!

I hope everyone reading this is enjoying some good holiday cheer in anticipation of time spent with loved ones. It is possible you are preparing a Christmas goose. Have I ever eaten goose? I don’t think I have. I have had duck, I have had Cornish hen, but goose? I think the answer is no. I’d give a try, I guess, why not?

Regarding Christmas and movies, the best ones ever made are Miracle on 34th St, because little Natalie Wood is cute and pretends to be a monkey, and, of course, Albert Finney in Scrooge, released in 1970 directed by the great Ronald Neame. The songs are terrific, the fake London sets are tremendous, and the performances are just this side of clever while still being good wholesome family entertainment. Is there a British equivalent of corn pone? This movie comes close, at times, but that just makes it better. For well over 20 years, my beloved spouse and I have watched this every Christmas Eve, and this year was no different. This is despite the fact that Finney’s Scrooge looks like Donald Trump (seriously) and Donald Trump is gross. “Good afternoon!”

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This week the aforementioned Scrooge-loving spouse and I drove to North Carolina and back, and if you take I-95 through Richmond, Virginia you may notice two things. Northbound, at night, the skyline is lit up like Tron if Tron’s color motif was yellow and not blue. But in either direction you will pass the headquarters of Philip Morris, also known as The House That Cancer Built.

It is marked by a large obelisk with the logos of various cigarette brands. You can’t miss it.

What on Earth is it like to work there? The mind boggles.

Sure, not every job is an exercise in being noble. God knows I’ve made wages working for some pretty suspicious media groups, and continue to do so. But no one ever suffered a miserable death because of my SEO-targeted news stories. (At least not yet!) And, certainly, not every product is what you’d call healthy. The folks that make and market Twinkies aren’t exactly saints. But what must it be like for people who shill cigarettes on a day-to-day basis?

Every full time job I’ve had has included meetings where someone points to a spreadsheet and babbles about trying to get the numbers up. How does that work at Philip Morris?

Boss: The big success this week is what Tom and his group are doing. Tom, can you speak to that?

Tom: Absolutely. We leveraged several initiatives to monetize from our endemic consumer base, to extract maximum growth.

Boss: Ah, and the consumer base being…

Tom: The downtrodden and poor, mostly, but also people with tremendous self-confidence issues convinced that our product is the psychological crutch they needed to feel temporarily secure.

Boss: And this is despite decades of medical evidence of the product’s deadly nature, and the inability to advertise?

Tom: Correct.

Boss: Outstanding. And what are the next steps?

Tom: Well, eventually our products will kill them.

Boss: But slowly?

Tom: Yes, usually. And painfully, I should add.

Boss: That is immaterial.

Tom: Oh, sorry. Anyway, yes, we are out there killing people. We, the people in this room, are actively killing people. We are creating and distributing a product of absolutely no value, which only causes torment and destruction. This has been proven by science and everyone on the planet — and even those orbiting it — are by now aware. And the product smells like shit.

Boss: And we’re all making a tremendous profit!

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If you walk out of my front door, make a right, then make a left, then keep going for a bit you will find a house with a broken mailbox. What do I mean by broken mailbox? I mean the door does not — simply can not stay open. The hinge is busted and the door flops down. What’s more, there is no backing. The mailbox, which is perched on the side of the road, is basically a plastic green tube. The slightest breeze pushes this recipient’s mail to the four winds, and the owner seems not to care.

I discovered this months ago. I was walking past and saw mail all over the lawn and on the road. One piece of mail was definitely “important.” You can kinda tell when a letter needs to be looked at quickly, right? I clocked it right away laying up near the neighbor’s lawn, where anyone might think it was garbage.

I picked it and more mail up, put it in the box, and closed the door. Then the door slid down. I pushed it back. No dice. Third try. Same deal. I went on with my walk (I distinctly remember I was listening to Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem, which is very heavy, emotional music) and feeling deeply unnerved. When I walked back and saw the same mail scattered all over the place, I realized that all was lost.

I try not to walk in that direction too often. It’s all too much. However, I went by there today, saw the mailbox open and fell briefly into a mild despair.

Can you imagine the life of someone who knows their mail blows away to the neighbor’s lawn regularly, and does nothing? Who could live like this? They probably have chirping fire alarms in every room. Maybe they even work for Philip Morris!??!

Anyway, MERRRRRRRRRRRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! I am probably not seeing Phish during the New Year’s Eve run this year, but that’s okay, I’ve seen them a million times before (including twice this summer.) I hope to come up with an alternative 12/31 plan soon!

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