Hey everybody,

It's that time again…

Thank you for being a regular reader of my monthly news letter.

First things first:  I give to you a little winter solstice video with a song from the matadors album. Just click on the picture above.

Also, I remind you that my winter Holiday tale with John Elliott's stunning voice and piano

The Three Kings of Memphis

is availabe right here: I want the Three Kings of Memphis! or paste: https://celticartstudio.com/shop/chandler_cds/three_kings_of_memphis/

I am just now starting to be able to walk in a straight line again.  I miss y'all out in Oakland! I do.

I am still living in my friend Bryan's man cave and working as a stagehand in Washington, DC.  I plan to drive back across the country on January 1st (I will miss those annual New Year's Day Celebrations in Oakland!) to gather my belongings and put most of it and storage and the drive up to Eugene, OR to begin working on a new record project with Sean Shanahan.

This will be my 18th Record!  Working title: "Working on a building."  This is an exciting one! We are doing stripped down acoustic covers of the punk rock  songs of my youth which have always been at the root of everything I do. We will be unveiling them for the truly great songs that they are and weaving in a fresh patch of Chandlerisms.  We are talking, Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop, Southern Culture on the Skids and X.

If you have always wanted to be an executive producer I have started a little fundraiser you too could reach that dream of being a patron of the arts.

https://www.facebook.com/donate/787649128324812/

Or you could go to my website where i have a coffee cup: https://www.chrischandler.org

T.H.E. .M.U.S.E. .A.N.D. .W.H.I.R.L.E.D. .R.E.T.O.R.T.

December, 2019

Mt Rainier, MD

It seems like the war on Christmas just comes earlier and earlier every year.

It always amazes me how many liberals take the bait. They respond to the non-controversy in a way that further opens rifts that really should not exist.

Like I always say, "Freedom is thanking a God you don't believe in."

Wal-Mart has an ad slogan this year, "We are not afraid to say Merry Christmas."

Thanking a God you DO believe in seems easy somehow. Maybe even selfish. That is why I say "Merry Christmas" right back. There is a group out there called Jews for Jesus. I like it. But, still, Jesus was a Jew. What about Atheists for Jesus? What about Christians for Atheists? What about Christians for Muslims? How about Sunnis for Shiites? Shiites for Sunnis? Muslims for Jews? Jews for Muslims? Pagans for Wiccans? Baptists for Queers? Or even Queers for Baptists?

Now, we are getting somewhere.

There is really no difference in any of our religions — except some meaningless symbology. If there is anything that Christ taught, it was the superficiality of symbology. (Luke 21)

So, here in the midst of what may soon be a very hot civil war between Sunnis and Shiites caused by Christians, or even worse - when the Christians pull out — a war between Sunni and Shiite nations over the country that was Iraq, - a very real World War III - I find it hard to say Merry Christmas.

But, I do. Merry Christmas.

Translated "Happy Rising of our Savior." But is not for the birth of a single child born some 2000 years ago in a country that is now torn apart by religious apartheid that I say, "Merry Christmas."

I say it to celebrate the  the savior, and the forgiver of our sins that is born, or could be born, within each one of us, each moment, of each hour of each and every day.

It is a child not created through sexual intercourse but through faith. He is born in the feeding trough of a jackass — the lowest place within our own soul.

May we learn from the lowest of the low, as he taught, to forgive each other for their sins so that we may not die because of our own.

Merry Christmas.

I bring to you a gift to celebrate the birth of our savior. Our savior is you.

It is a humble gift. One you have, I am sure, heard before

Please re re-read, these surprising profound lyrics from the late fifties.

Don't gloss over them as you would if you heard some classic rock ditty for your youth echo in your cranium at a grocery store one thousand times.

Sometimes a song lasts because it is well... good.

OK OK, I too find the "pa rum pum pum pum" hook a little cloying too, but can we move on?

That said, let the melody linger in your head as you read the interwoven segments.

Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum

A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum

Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum

To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum,

rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.

"I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

So to honor Him, pa rum pum pum pum,

When we come.

It is difficult to conjure that Christ intended every widow to give all she had to live on. Especially when you consider that widows in the antiquated world in which these words were written, a widow was the poorest of the poor. A temple was skyscraper. Asking a widow to give what little she had to the church treasury is like asking a disabled woman on the corner of the expressway and downtown to give away her social security check to the church for its television broadcast. Like, say the Jimmy Swaggarts of the world.

Notice Christ did not say, "Go forth and do likewise".

Why then did he mention it? Think about that this Christmas season.

Little Baby, pa rum pum pum pum

I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum

I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum

That's fit to give the King, pa rum pum pum pum,

rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

They came to him and said, "Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay or shouldn't we?"

But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. "Why are you trying to trap me?" he asked. "Bring me a Denarius and let me look at it."

They brought the coin, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied.

Shall I play for you, pa rum pum pum pum,

On my drum?

"Render unto Caesar, that which is Caesar's and Render unto God that which is God's."

His Mother nodded, pa rum pum pum pum

The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum

I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum

I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum,

rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

I always envisioned Christ reaching down and holding a clod of dirt, like Katy Scarlet O'Hara as he delivers his line…

he holds the clod of dirt for others to inspect…

"Whose face do you see here?"

They look at each other puzzled...

Christ said, "That is the face of God."

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum

Me and my drum.

Merry Christmas

****************************

H.e.r.e.s. .d.a. .d.a.t.e.s:

January 11, 2020

Oakland, CA Chris Chandler's Farewell Party

Venue TBA

If you would like to come and contribute your talents to what is sure to be a festive evening.  If ya like please bring a song, a poem, a story, interprative dance, majik trick, or just your self.