The Theme Is Rudolph

Some thoughts on Rudolph, first of all, before we begin:

Tracey’s hilarious break-down of Rudolph, with such lines as: “Head Elf is clearly a rage-aholic.” and “Donner, Rudolph’s dad, is an abusive ass.” and “Clarice, Rudoph’€™s would-be lover, wears a Minnie Mouse bow on her head in the middle of the frozen tundra. I have never understood that.” and “Look, €œCharlie-in-the-Box, don’t be such a blubbering baby.” Go read the whole thing.

And here is Curly’s laugh-out-loud funny post (I am still crying over here about Mrs. Brady) about what you can learn from TV Christmas specials. With lines like:

How come nobody kicked the shit out of Albert in ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas? Dude, if some asshole pissed off Santa by writing a letter on my behalf claiming Santa was a “fraudulent myth,” I’d calculate the value of my Christmas list and then take it out of his ass. I don’t care that he fixed the Santa clock. Albert was a total douche bag.

I beg of you to go read the whole thing.

And now I come to my own tale about Rudolph:

In college, I was hanging out with Mitchell and a couple of other friends. We were in Mitchell’s beach house “down the line” – a rickety shack where we had some of our most cast parties. (“Down the line” meant you lived in a shack on the beach with your nusto friends, as opposed to in the dorms where there were things like RAs, and stuff like that. Living “down the line” was everyone’s goal in college! I lived “down the line” as well. In a kitten-ridden hellhole of runaways.)

So – it was Christmastime. A couple of us had hung out, ordered pizza, and then we all watched Rudolph on television. We were all 19, 20, but we watched it as raptly as if we were 6.

A couple of words on Emily before the story itself. Emily was a very good friend. And here are the bullet points in regards to Emily:

— She was from the Dominican Republic

— She grew up on the streets of Providence, Rhode Island. Before Providence’s rejuvenation, when Providence was a rough rough town.

— She was in a gang, and they had a name like the Dragon Bitches, or something like that. She was involved in gang wars. She threw bricks at the girls from St. Xavier’s.

— She was a math whiz, genius-level.

— She ended up getting into college because of her math scores

— She was the only minority female in the engineering department. And almost the only female at all, come to think of it. (There was a moment at the bursar’s office when the lady behind the desk, finding out that Emily was Dominican, said, “Em’ly. I did not know you wasn’t a Negro student.” First of all: Negro? Negro?? Are you kidding me, lady? The woman did not mean ANY harm -although I know that is hard to believe – and Emily didn’t take offense – she had a high-tuned instinct for comedy … and that bursar lady’s innocent comment was funny. The shortened way she said “Emily”, clipping off the middle syllable – and the weird “wasn’t” as opposed to “weren’t” and then “NEGRO”??? Comedy GOLD. Emily did imitations of the poor woman for 4 years straight. I’d ask Emily some random question about her schedule, or what she did over the weekend, and she’d give me a piercing concerned look and say, “She’la. You did not know I wasn’t a Ne-gro student?” The joke never died.)

— She had a huge mohawk

— She had a passion for African dance

— She wore tiny tartan kilts, ripped black tights, and huge stomping motorcycle boots

— She chain-smoked.

So … put all that together … what do you have? Emily. Oh, and add onto that. Emily had:

— a huge laugh

— a warm heart

— a no-bullshit attitude towards friendship – she was as loyal as the day was long – but you do NOT want to mess with her. Otherwise she might throw a brick at you.

Emily has now gotten her doctorate in mathematics. The university where she is also has a strong African dance company. She spends her days drowning in mathematics and African dance. But back in the day, she was throwing bricks at the girls from the Catholic school, wearing a jacket with Dragon Bitches From Hell on the back of it, ciggie butt dangling from her mouth.

So that’s Emily. I just need to set it up because what ended up happening on the Rudolph night was even funnier because it was EMILY who said it. The tattooed Mohawked ex-gang member. With a calculator in her pocket.

We lay around in the living room watching Rudolph. Nobody spoke. We were LIVING the Christmas special.

Then came the devastating scene where we realized Santa’s coldness and how he basically shuns Rudolph from polite society. He won’t let Rudolph join in the reindeer games; he won’t even let him hang OUT with the other reindeer!! The red nose is something to be ashamed of. It implicates the entire North Pole venture. Donner has produced a freak. All must be shunned. Santa must get rid of Rudolph as quickly as possible. Somehow, I took all of this in stride as a child; I just accepted that Santa was kind of an asshole – but suddenly, in this particular viewing, with Emily and Mitchell, it seemed unbeLIEVably unfair.

I didn’t say anything about this injustice. I just thought it to myself.

And Emily, sprawled out on the couch, a cigarette dangling from her lips, ashtray piled high with butts propped on her stomach, her legs with their ripped black fishnets hooked up over the back of the couch, said in a flat dry tone, with dead matter-of-fact eyes, “Santa is a racist motherfuckah.”

There was a brief pause, as we all nodded seriously, agreeing with her (she had voiced the unsaid vibe in the room) … but then we all looked at Emily – the mohawk, the scary gang tattooes, the cigarette – she was our friend – but we suddenly saw her EXTERIOR … we all looked at each other … and just LOST IT.

We lost it so bad that we missed the rest of Rudolph . We could not get it back, we could not come down. It just kept being hilarious to us. Because she truly MEANT it … she wasn’t saying it to be funny, she wasn’t saying it in a tone of “ooh, aren’t I funny” mock outrage … she wasn’t even outraged at all, come to think of it. She was just flatly stating the facts. We could not stop laughing. Santa is a DICK. Emily was laughing so hard that she had to go outside and get some air, walk around the frosty yard, howling to the moon with laughter.