A Charlie Brown Christmas, while charming, is really terrible.

I understand that part of the allure of gathering the tots around the tube every yuletide is to reflect back upon memories of simpler times while appreciating the historical significance of the cartoon, but c’mon: the production value of the thing is just awful.

Whenever I catch a Charles Shultz biography or similar documentary, they are quick to point out that, in a radical move uncommon to the industry, Charlie Brown cartoons used actual kids rather than grown-up voice actors for the audio track. Neat idea, I guess, but did they have to use the least convincing children on the planet for the job? The lack of trained child voice actors in the heyday of animation results in Shultzian quirks that, thanks to broadcast television’s annual promotion, remain with us to this day: long, awkward pauses; weird voice inflections; and a final speech by Linus that’s delivered so quickly it seems like he has to pee or something.

Also (and this is an aside not solely related to the original Christmas show), using child voiceovers necessitates whole new casts for future iterations of Charlie Brown cartoons. After they air A Charlie Brown Christmas, they air I Want a Dog for Christmas, Charlie Brown! with an entirely different cast. I realize that the latter was made decades after the former and that it would be nearly impossible to use the same cast for both, regardless of age, but something tells me it would be easier to emulate the original voices had they been well composed by professional voice actors. Just my two cents.

However silly these kids sound, though, I still watch A Charlie Brown Christmas every year (in all its terrible glory). I don’t know, maybe it’s that I’m a sucker for convention and to watch Peanuts cartoons on major American holidays is the most conventional way a middle class white kid can spend his youth. Maybe my relatively newfound discovery of jazz music has drawn me once again to the cartoon’s soundtrack. Or maybe I just like to watch for the purpose of participating in the greatest of all American pastimes, rampant and unfounded criticism.

Look out for my Christmas post next year, in which I attempt to discern the origins of this new-fangled “Rerun” character. That kid sucks.

Oh wait, it would be going up against Jay Leno’s new show. Never mind, I think Congress is more entertaining as it is.

Billy Mays, you deserved better than this. In the wake of Michael Jackson’s trip to the preteen farm in the sky (or, as it were, deep below the ground in the special section of Hell), your passing garnered nothing more than a footnote in the media.

I watched Jackson’s memorial yesterday. Mariah Carey and Lionel Ritchie performed. Thousands flocked to see his gold casket. They closed down a Los Angeles freeway for his funeral procession, for Christ sake. People seem to forget the fact that mere months ago, this dude(?) was a monster in the eyes of society. I know it’s not kosher to speak ill of the dead, but in my defense Michael Jackson looked like he died 15 years ago. His heart was just catching up with the times.

But Billy Mays? There had never been a bad thing to say about this bastion of capitalism. He never slept with children. He was never a weird guy. The closest he ever came to buying a chimp named Bubbles was doing that TV show with Anthony Sullivan. He was just an honest man with a timeless beard that peddled mighty products that helped Americans every single day.

America, you sicken me. Sure, Jackson may have busted a move now and again. But his legacy seems vastly overrated. His music, in my opinion, was all right. But it was nothing compared to the stain-fighting powers of OxyClean, the adhesive abilities of Mighty Mendit, or the absorbency of Impact Gel.

In the end, though, Billy Mays’ celebrity status caught up with him. Because when God called the toll-free hotline for Michael Jackson’s kicking of the bucket, he threw in the passing of a television legend absolutely free. Just paid shipping and handling.

Not Awesome: Daytona Cubs Centerfielder Anthony Campana. Ian and I went out to the Clearwater Threshers game last night, and after 13 and a half innings, the score was tied. After walking two batters to load the bases with one out, Clearwater’s Fidel Hernandez flied out to centerfield, where Campana did a double-pump and never even parted with the ball, allowing the man on third to tag up, score and win the game. I know this isn’t particularly interesting, but I looked and there doesn’t seem to be a formal account of Campana’s epic failure on the Internet. I just feel that this should be documented lest he ever become anything in the realm of baseball.

But I have also developed a pet peeve regarding the field. It used to be that when you would watch the news and something of great importance happened, they would cut away to an anchor who would tell us all about the “breaking news.”

Now, though, it seems that they have completely bastardized the phrase. Now, I can watch CNN for an hour in the morning and everything they’ve got for me is all of a sudden “breaking news.”

That group of elementary school children stacking cups for charity? “Breaking news.”
That lost dog from Florida that showed up in Canada a la Homeward Bound? “Breaking news.”
The Kansas City Royals suck? “Breaking news.” I think you get the point.

See, back when breaking news was rare and actually meant something, it was like a little treat during an otherwise bland and unexciting newscast. Now, however, they throw the term around like it’s a vowel, for God’s sake. Personally, I think that the term “breaking news” should have to meet three requirements:

First, someone’s gotta die. Yes, it is a sad reality, but when the news flips up “breaking news” about Sarah Palin adopting a polar bear or whatever it is she does, my heart flutters and then sinks. “Breaking news?” That’s hardly news!

Second, the newsworthy event has to be able to occur instantaneously or within a very short period of time. “Breaking news” that is merely an update on a developing story isn’t news. It’s a clarification of a prior news item and therefore terribly boring and lame.

Third, and perhaps most importantly, the event must not happen often. Listen, I don’t want a barrage of “breaking news” at all hours of the day. I think that “breaking news” should be limited to once a month at least. “Oh, the President of Mexico was killed by a flock of albatrosses? Sorry, we used our opportunity up last week. I knew we shouldn’t have run that story on packing peanuts!”

Maybe my cynicism is what’s kept me out of the major.

No show is that funny.

The front office says they want to increase their fan base across the state by bringing in the Rays, in sort of a traveling circus type atmosphere, to everywhere they need some television viewers, merchandise buyers, and bad bullpen lovers. This is all well and good, since I’d love to see more and more people live and die with this team like I do, but I think a rational move before actually temporarily relocating the team would be o give fans across the state access to TV broadcasts of every game.

In Gainesville, for example, I get to see about a third of all the games. Luckily for me, I’ve come home to eat my parents’ food for the summer, but had I stayed in Gainesville, I would be up the creek without a paddle. Or a bullpen.

On the tube was, perhaps, the longest City Planning Commission meeting to have ever occurred. The docket was full of issues, but I happened to start watching in the middle of a proposal to rezone some rural residential land into commercial land for some utilities company, complete with a tower so that the business hub could communicate with their utility vehicles out and about in the field. Simple enough, right?

Wrong. I don’t really care to get into the specifics of the debate, since it’s pretty well boring and arguments lasted for (literally) hours. I just want to give a quick once-over of the good folks on the Alachua County City Planning Commission, who are, for all intensive purposes, as varied as the topics they discussed that evening.

First, we had Poor Statute Guy. This poor guy had to rattle off statutes and procedural rules to the otherwise uninformed members of the commission for hours. When his peers didn’t like what he said, they fought with him. But I mean, come on – Dude was just reading the rules.

Then, Hippy Environmental Activist. You know the kind: long hair, no tie, insists that society would be far better if we still traveled by horse and buggy, probably eats Hare Krishna Lunch.

Now, New Age Beatnick almost always agreed with Hippy Environmental Activist, which is convenient in that they sit next to each other. This guy reminded me of a thirty-something kind of guy who tries to be socially aware to impress college students. He probably also likes Matchbox 20.

Then, it got interesting. Presiding over the meeting was Skinny Jewish Conservative. Skinny Jewish Conservative was a curious fellow because not only did he disagree with Hippy Environmental Activist and New Age Beatnick, he fought against everyone (even Joe Redneck, who we will examine next).

Joe Redneck didn’t talk much. But when he did, he would insult Hippy Environmental Acitvist and New Age Beatnick in an effort to support his favorite utilities company; I guess he wasn’t a fan of Gainesville Regional Utilities, I’m not sure. I picture Joe walking out after the meeting to his 1989 Chevy 4×4 painted to look like the General Lee ‘69 Charger of Dukes of Hazzard fame.

Next down the line came Jose “Conflict of Interest” Perez, a Hispanic man who could barely speak English but abstained to vote on the proposal because his law firm had somehow landed the representation of one of the parties involved. Interestingly, this refusal culminated in the failure of a plurality after the voting process. This made me quite mad, as I had devoted almost three hours to watching these folks debate this proposal.

Sitting next to Jose Perez was the only Black Guy on the commission. Incidentally, he was the only cool guy on the commission. He waited until all the squabbling was over with between Hippy Environmental Activist, New Age Beatnick, Skinny Jewish Conservative, Joe Redneck, and Jose “Conflict of Interest” Perez to weigh in with a highly uninformative, unclear position. I say he was cool because he seemed to be above the commission process and it became clear to me that as the meeting proceeded, he ultimately came to the conclusion that becoming a member of this body was a mistake.

…Almost as big of a mistake as my decision to watch this meeting in the first place.