Bleeeargggh! Humbug

by RAF KATIGBAK

“De gustibus non est disputandum.”

That’s what my friend A. always says. It’s basically a fancy way of saying “There’s no arguing with taste.” Which I suppose is an even fancier way of saying “hakuna matata,” or maybe a less fancy way, depending on how old you are. For the most part, I agree with all of these sayings. I mean, I’m a pretty open guy. I don’t think anyone is a bad person for wearing striped dress shirts with silk-screened skulls on it or busting a gut watching Frasier reruns. Sure they’re two things that would qualify as giving me douche-chills. But hey, it takes all kinds—which is something my friend A. always says.

But it’s true that I don’t like casting aspersions too quickly, especially with music. Which is strange, because music is so important to me. But working at a record store, I quickly learned that perfectly nice people can buy really bad music. When I was working as assistant manager at a reputable three-lettered downtown music store, I sold so many Andrea Bocelli Romanza CDs you could probably pile them up and record their distance with some ridiculous factoid-like unit of measurement like the CN Tower or maybe a Canadian football field. But the people who bought them weren’t evil people per se. They just kind of bought into the hype, and maybe they wanted something inoffensive to put on or something safe to buy their parents. I mean, I don’t know how many Meredith Brooks CDs I sold (it would probably line up end to end across Lake Ontario or something) but as much as I wanted to stop the people with one from coming to the counter by shaking the shit out of them and screaming, “Are you SURE about this?” I never did. There’s no arguing with taste.

Well, there is arguing with one thing. There is one genre of music I can’t stand and must question the quality of people who enjoy it. No, it’s not rap metal. Sure, it makes me scratch my head a little when I walk into a room where some coked-up shirtless chief has jumped up on his coffee table and is pumping his fist to a Slipknot YouTube clip blaring from the shitty computer speakers going “Dude! These guys rule! I just discovered them three weeks ago!” But I accept that’s just his reality. Maybe one day I’ll be into date rape and frog bongs too (probably not).

No, I just hate Christmas music. There, I said it. I hate it. I know, I know, “hate” is a strong word. Now that I think of it, hate is not even strong enough a word to express my distaste for the music. Revile? Despise? None of these words truly capture the feeling. In fact, I think I have to make up a new word just to convey the psychic and physical damage caused by Christmas music. My new word will be: Bleeeargggh! Bleeeargggh! is the sound my brain makes when I walk into every store in Montreal and hear the same cheery soul-crushing tunes. It reflects the enraged anguish caused by listening to 300 different versions of “Walking in a Winter Wonderland” everywhere I go—the disco version, the swing jazz version, the Quebec folk version, the New Age version, the urban downtempo boutique version, ad infinitum.

To use the word effectively, one must understand how it is said. Saying Bleeeargggh! starts even before a single sound is made. You begin with pursed lips, trembling like a dam holding back a giant flood of pain that rumbles like the deep nauseating throat-bubbly tenor of Michael Bolton when he sings “Ave Maria.” Then the lips part with an explosion of the BL followed by a crescendo that begins on the first E and rises into a desperate voice-cracking rage by the third, sort of like Howard Dean’s famous scream in the 2004 U.S. elections. By the time you hit the A, you should be hitting a note so high that only dogs can hear it (use Mariah Carey’s “Joy to the World” as inspiration). The A to R sound is kind of like a pirate-y growl, but not comical, like a fake pirate with a wooden leg and a parrot, but more desperate and threatening, like a Somalian pirate with an AK47, a rocket launcher and a hungry village. The three Gs to the H is the swan song of the word. A dying gurgle that ends in an exasperated “fuck you” by the H. It says, “Fine, you may have won the battle of shitty muzak versions of mind-numbing Christmas carols, but you haven’t won the war. Until we meet again next season.” Bleeeargggh!

To witness my revenge on Christmas music, come to the Darling Foundry (745 Ottawa) this Saturday, 5–9 p.m., for the DHC presentation of Christian Marclay’s Sounds of Christmas, where Marclay has assembled over 1,500 Christmas-themed records. Martin Tetreault, Nancy Tobin, myself and DJ partner Olivier Alary will give hour-long performances using only the vinyl at hand. Revenge never sounded so fucked up.

RIFF-RAFF@SYMPATICO.CA