Parranda

Parranda by MiraHartford

The Puerto Rican tradition of caroling at friends and family's houses, surprising them. Luis Cotto invited me along to document this tradition here as practiced here in Hartford, CT. It was a lot of fun. A full video of the evening will be out soon, but for now, enjoy this song.

Hope Out Loud CoffeeHouse

La Paloma Sabanera Coffeehouse by MiraHartford

Our friends at La Paloma Sabanera Coffeehouse sent us a warm invitation to Hope Out Loud this evening,

Looking for a great way to unwind after the holidays--but no $$ to spend?

La Paloma Sabanera Coffee House and the Hope Out Loud Coffee House are teaming up to present some great local folk music artists.

Join us this Friday, December 26th at 7:30pm and enjoy folk music the way it was meant to--in your local coffee house with an espresso in your hand!

Performers will include: Eric Paradine, Jean-Louis & Bon Amis, Steve Fournier, Cookie Fritz, the Amazing Kevin, and David Brown as well as a few surprises.

$5 donation at the door goes to the Hope Out Loud organization.
Refreshments will be available.

Great way to help the economy, go support local coffeehouses! Don't be a Grinch!

The perfect lullaby for this year's Christmas season

"Fairytale of New York" by the Pogues and Kristy McColl

With all that's been going on this year with the US, I think this the perfect video/song to end the Christmas season with. Enjoy!

Our Lady of Fatima Midnight Mass

"Midnight Mass" by Rabbit Ears Media

At the end of this year's midnight mass at my family's parish, my parents and their old friends from their hometown in Portugal, shared their traditional procession with the friends in Hartford. In their hometown, Reguengo do Fétal, at the end of the midnight mass, the town folk bring offerings to the infant of foods, animals, plants, herbs, while singing a traditional song. So, I share this Christmas tradition with you all. Peace from the Hartbeat and Merry Christmas!
Sorry, it was a little too late for me to add subtitles!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas at Ground Zero by Weird Al Yankovich

Wishing all my readers, friends, and family, a very peaceful and merry Christmas. May the new year bring us our good health and brighter future filled with new hope.

And to the trolls and assclowns who have to bitch about everything, Happy Holidays to you too. Enjoy some more Christmas videos after the jump.

My other favorite Christmas song:


And this little ditty goes out to our old friend, Sundari:

Progressive Happy Hour: Festivus for the Rest-uv-us

Frosty the Christmas Tree, photo by MiraHartford

Well, PHHers, it's that time of year again. Come to Progressive Happy Hour to enjoy in the season's festivities. Tuesday, December 23, 2008, @ 9:00pm ish at Red Rock Tavern, 395 Capitol Avenue, Hartford, CT 06106.

The holidays, the shopping, the eating, the drinking, the swearing at the other shoppers, the traffic keeping you from that last iPhone bought by the assclown who cut you off 3 lights back and got to the parking lot before you so now you don't have that perfect gift for yourself - errr, for your loved ones - and then your car gets blocked in by other cars leaving the mall so you're trapped in the mall parking lot for hours, waiting to leave to go find gifts elsewhere, waiting for the shopping zombie holocaust to come, where you'll have to barricade yourself in the mall with hundreds of others as the shopping zombie disease spreads, infecting all then you have to defend yourself and the other survivors, like the hot goth chick from Hot Topic that won't have sex with you because she's in love with the manager from the Apple store, then you remember, that damn song that keeps playing over and over from the apple commercials might just destroy the shopping zombies, or at least make them dance so that you and the others can escape... but now, you're captured by the zombies, and watch as the hot chick from Hot Topic is held in the arms of the manager from the Apple store and you know that while the shopping zombies will feast on your entrails, that they will have amazing sex to repopulate the Earth, while you well end up as a shopping zombie without entrails, mindlessly roaming from store to store searching for the perfect gift of brains for your zombie offspring only to realize that you're searching in a mall, where there are no brains to be eaten.

Should you find that you have survived the holiday shopping zombie holocaust, than join The Progressive Happy Hour to celebrate the Festivus for the Restivus (with apologies to Jerry Stiller)! We will be having PHHnog (that's really, just a white russian followed by any other drink you want), singing non-holiday carols, eating Festivus Fries and Festivus Chicken Tenders, watching whatever is on the telly. Come and enjoy the day randomly selected to honor the birth of some kid in Bethlehem, CT. Watch and quote countless hours of A Christmas Story.

We of course know, that with said insane holidays, some of you will not be with us, trapped in traveling road movies, trying to get home to your families only to realize, that the reason you live so far from your family in the first place is to avoid hanging out with them for mindless hours and you think, perhaps I should just sacrifice myself to the shopping zombie holocaust instead of partaking in the lobotomy enducing hours of travel. To you, we wish you Happy Holidays, have fun, safe travels, and get back soon!

Cartoons to avoid

Maakies art by Tony Millionaire from Dark Horse site

Our mate AvignonAntiPope gave us a fair warning recently:

Warning! Do not be fooled by "Drinky Crow" on Adult Swim. When I saw the advertisement, I became greatly excited. When I saw the show, I became nauseous. Millionaire is a producer and apparently gives this crap the green light but it does his work a dis-service. Helder has some Maakies shorts on a video collection called "God Hates Cartoons." Those are terrific. These are just not funny in any way. O.K. that's my two cents. If you doubt me, D.C. airs on Cartoon Network on Sunday at 12:15 a.m.

Tony Millionaire is a great comic artist/storyteller, most famous for his Sock Monkey books and Maakies strips. It's a shame to hear the new cartoon isn't as good.

UPDATE: Failed to note that the Drinky Crow Pilot is posted after the jump so that you can judge for yourselves.
Or you can decide for yourself. Here is the Pilot Drinky Crow cartoon from Adult Swim, on YouTube.

Rudie Can't Fail

Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros, live at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, in 1999

Today marks yet another anniversary of the passing of former The Clash frontman, Joe Strummer. Mr. Strummer's music, both with The Clash and afterwards, have been influential in my life and art. While the video above represents one of my all time favorite Clash song, he is performing with his band, The Mescaleros. Yet his talent was such that he could work with this new, younger band and get them to do truly amazing original work and still perform older Clash standards. You are still missed, Joe. Keep on rocking in the great beyond.

I still remember exactly where I was when my best friend and then-roommate called to tell me that Joe Strummer had died. I was filming a Christmas show in Hartford's City Hall and it was like my world just fell apart. The Clash and Strummer's music have been a part of my life's soundtrack since my adolescence when I 'discovered' them (despite the disintegration of the band in 1984, before I was really following music). For example, Rudy Can't Fail takes me back to very specific times in college and Europe; the long albums London Calling and Sandanista, have gotten me through many long, solitary nights of burning the midnight oil. For some, it has seemed odd that we Clash/Strummer fans get so choked up over it. But it's no different than the youth who lost Cobain, the jazz fans who lost Bird, Coltrane, Monk, or in Cuba, the loss of El Benny. Music has a great impact on us, as best of songs can seem like the songwriters wrote the songs for us and the beat of the music moves us to rock, to jump, to cry, to laugh, to shout, but most of all, to live.

Only a year earlier, my friends and I had gone to the Webster in Hartford to see Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros perform. It was, to me, a spectacular performance. Joe was rocking it in a small venue, just like the early days of the Clash. It wasn't the size: it was for the fans. The music was pure and rocking: the Mescaleros were weaving in and out of their songs and of The Clash songs, performing for their leader, mentor, and friend. For me as a fan, it was the best show I'd ever been to, and to this day, still ranks up there (tied is Tom Waits). It ranks as the best, because I got to see him, performing, in Hartford. He was no longer just a voice on the radio, tape deck, cdplayer, computer speakers, mp3 headphones; he was flesh & blood, in my hometown, playing for us, the fans.

As I prepared to go back to work, after being told of his sudden death, I could only think of the loss of the music he would bring us. Sure, he left a great volume of work, and there was still an album to come out (worth it just for the haunting cover of Redemption Song), but there was loss in one's heart that a friend was gone. In the same room I was in, a friend walked up and asked, "why so sad during the holidays?". I could barely say that Strummer had died. She too was a fan, so we hugged each other, as if we lost a mutual relative. We finished our jobs that night, went home with a pack of Guinness, and bottles of assorted liquor, put in London Calling, and drank and sang badly to Joe.

While my mates and I drank and sang for Joe, I also drank for several others who have passed away around Christmas, starting with my uncle Joe of lung cancer several years before, a distant cousin killed in a tragic car accident (only 24), another killed in a mugging. Since my Uncle Joe died in 1999, Christmas has never really been the same. Every year, more and more, it gets colder and lonelier, as our heroes, musicians, and most importantly, family, leave us.

So, raise a pint, down a shot, smoke a joint, and blast that Clash LP as loud as you can. Wake up the neighborhood and get them rocking.