EASTER IS COMING!

Sunday, Christians will celebrate Easter and commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without realizing it, they will also celebrate the pagan fertility springtime festival the Christian holiday supplanted. Crucifixions will mingle with fertility symbols--chicks, eggs, rabbits, flowers. It's been this way since the first Easter, at the tail end of the Iron Age. Look it up. In fact, the pagan goddess of spring and renewal was called "Oestar" from the Scandinavian "Ostra" and the Teutonic "Ostern" or "Eastre." This goddess of spring and fertility was honored on the vernal (spring) equinox. All that, and chocolate!

Of course, many people (most of the people on the planet, in fact) don't believe in Jesus as our Savior/Messiah, but they are still welcome to a chocolate bunny. Some people don't even believe in the Easter Bunny, who they claim is merely a magical mythical figure depicted as an anthropomorphic rabbit that delivers eggs in a basket. The following chart will help you place yourself according to your belief in Jesus (and of course many will simply be off the chart). This diagram may also help clarify your belief (or lack thereof) in the Easter Bunny.


The great Tom Waits helps us celebrate Easter with a stirring rendition of "Chocolate Jesus," combining both strains of the holiday in one tasty treat.

Speaking of anthropomorphic rabbits, here's one of our favorites, Bugs Bunny, helping the Easter Bunny in this cartoon classic from 1947, "Easter Yeggs." Just so you'll know, "yegg" is oldtime slang for a burglar or safecracker.


"Easter Yeggs" (1947) Looney Tunes


Springtime in Italy is the watchword around here, and this is how they celebrate the holiday. Wouldn't you know eating would be involved? You betcha. And you know it's good! Buona Pasqua! (Check out this post, Springtime in Italy).


Italy Travel: Easter Traditions in Italy


Isn't this little hatchling adorable? Long after the Iron Age but before the Age of Email, people actually sent these wonderful vintage Easter cards to family and friends. Of course, they weren't called "vintage" cards back then, no more than coins minted before the time of Christ carried the initials "B.C,," but now they've become collectibles. This was from the Golden Age of Illustration, before stock photos and Photoshop killed off the illustrators. Times were different then.

Here's another Easter cutie. Actually, this pin-up purports to be an actual photograph of the Easter Bunny. Then again, maybe it's Ostra, goddess of spring!

SOME SCARY SONGS

Halloween is just around the corner. Here are some scary songs--not your standard rubber-headed monster mash crap--but some truly scary songs about about murder, madness, and the dark clouds in the crystal ball.


"Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave. Have you ever walked past a murderer in a crowded street? Probably. "You'll see him in your nightmares, you'll see him in your dreams..."


"Magic" by Bruce Springsteen. "I wrote this song about how we live in this Orwellian time," Springsteen says, "when what's true can be made to seem like a lie, and a lie can be made to seem true. The song's not about magic, it's about tricks and their consequences." Let's hope the future is not foretold in the chilling final verse.


"Cold, Cold Ground," by Tom Waits. Don't let the gruff manner and rumpled suit fool you; Tom is the fool who speaks the truth. In medieval mystery plays, a buffoon or prankster often got the better of the Devil in a game of wits. Here Tom goes toe to toe with El Diablo.

TOM WAITS FOR NO ONE

Tom Waits does a pawn shop marimba in beautiful B movie black and white. You can't beat this clip. The old boxer is played by the legendary Jake LaMotta, the Raging Bull ( 83 wins--30 by knockout, 19 losses and 4 draws). Okay, tough guys don't dance, but scarecrow Tom does a moonlight jig beneath the window that jiggers the machinery of night. Nobody can take a punch like Jake, but Tom knocks him out. It's late! Who is this guy keeping all of Brooklyn awake? He's the coyote trickster, the beat boxer, the angelheaded hipster, the heartbroken thief--all the midnight archetypes rolled into one shabby suit--and he's thinking about a girl on a train.

Tom Waits is a national treasure. Buy the man a drink.

B movie man, John Garfield. Believing he killed a man in a drunken brawl, a prizefighter spends his life on the run. "They Made Me a Criminal," 1939

GLITTER AND DOOM

Chocolate Jesus

Tom Waits is touring the Deep South with songs about guns and Jesus. I picture a tent show revival with snake handlers and sweet tea, and preacher Tom speaking in tongues. I'd love to see this old geezer and his ramshackle music machine. Oh, yeah. Let's get real gone.


To hear a stunning two and a half show from Atlanta, Georgia, aired on NPR: click HERE.


Jockey Full of Bourbon

TOM WAITS FOR NO ONE

His Master's Voice


Tom Waits just announced plans to hit the road this summer for the Glitter and Doom Tour. Click HERE for more information and tour dates. Here he performs "All The World is Green" on David Letterman, and sticks around to chat.

WAY DOWN IN THE HOLE

"Way Down in the Hole" is the theme song of the HBO television series "The Wire." Each season has a different version of the song during the opening credits, but here is the songwriter himself, Tom Waits.

We just finished watching season four of The Wire, and I must say it's the best thing on television. By far. A show that covers the disintegration of an American city, Baltimore, may sound like a bore, but it somehow swoops into all the angles -- from the corner kids slinging dope, to the police detectives, to the community organizers, to the teacher in the crowded ghetto school, to the mayor. It's brilliant.

Omar, a killer who follows a code

That should be no surprise. The writing staff includes David Simon, who wrote "Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets" (which inspired the TV show "Homicide"), and Ed Burns, a former Baltimore police detective and public school teacher. Frequent contributors include novelists Dennis Lehane ('Mystic River'), George Pelecanos ('Right as Rain') and Richard Price ('Lush Life,' 'Clockers', "The Wanderers"). They have created some of most complex and interesting characters ever to fill your TV screen. Put it in your Netflix queue. Go on.

CHRISTMAS CARD FROM A HOOKER

Here's beat barfly Tom Waits playing piano and performing "Christmas card from a Hooker in Minneapolis."