Ketchup
Saturday, December 27, 2003
Listen

GK: …….after this message from the Ketchup Advisory Board.

TR: These are the good years for Barb and me. We had a nice quiet Christmas and watched all of our favorite Christmas movies on DVD, sitting in our PJs and eating popcorn and got dressed and went out for dinner at a restaurant and dinner, which used to take four hours and included weeping and yelling and slamming doors, took twenty minutes including dessert, and we came home and got right to work on the 5000-piece jigsaw puzzle that Barb gave me for Christmas last year, a Jackson Pollock jigsaw puzzle, which is almost finished, and now she's given me an Ad Reinhardt one, which should be a big challenge ----- and then suddenly she burst into tears. (SS SNIFFLING) Barb. What's wrong?

SS: I always feel bad when Christmas is over, Jim. You know that.

TR: You miss the kids? You feel guilty about how we kicked them out of the house and told them not to come back until they'd straightened out and now it's been six years? Is that it?

SS: No, it's just that ----- I love listening to the radio at Christmastime. It's like suddenly we go back to the Fifties and we have pop music again.

TR: I don't understand.

SS: You remember pop music----- Perro Como, Patti Page, the Lennon Sisters-----

TR: Sure.

SS: Radio got so ugly in the 70s. And the 80s and the 90s. Heavy metal. Hip-hop. All that anger. And talk radio. Oh my gosh. But Christmas comes along and for two magical days we're back in the Eisenhower years when everybody sort of got along with everybody else. Because there are no heavy metal Christmas songs. So we get to hear Bing Crosby. Andy Williams. Burl Ives. It's the 50s 24/7 for two days.

TR: When did you start saying "24/7," Barb?

SS: I'm sorry. I meant, "Round the clock." Anyway, I wish it could last longer. Til Epiphany. January 6th. The twelve days of Christmas. ---- Remember the Roger Wagner Chorale recording of that? Remember when there were choirs on radio----- the Harry Simeone Chorale? The Norman Luboff Choir? Now you have groups called Chameleon Pustules and Naked Fusebox Mama. I miss the old days.

TR: Hey---- turn up the radio----- (GUITAR LOW, STARTS)

SS: What?

TR: Turn it up------ they're playing our song.

SS: Oh it's Bob----

RD (SINGING, DYLAN): Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
Jack Frost nipping at your nose.
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up Eskimos……
Everybody knows-----

TR: All we need to ease our transition back to non-Christmas is ketchup, Barb. You know that. Ketchup contains natural mellowing agents that help you get over the post-holiday blues. And its festive red color really brightens up almost any dish.

SS: No doubt about that. (THEME)

RD: These are the good years, faces all a-glow,
Smoke from the chimney, the moon across the snow.
Ketchup is flowing on the escargot.

GK: Ketchup. For the good times.

RD: Ketchup...ketchup...