always on the porch

daily show 1.10.2011

It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
But it don’t snow here
It stays pretty green
I’m going to make a lot of money
Then I’m going to quit this crazy scene
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby cry

He tried hard to help me
You know, he put me at ease
And he loved me so naughty
Made me weak in the knees
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I’m so hard to handle
I’m selfish and I’m sad
Now I’ve gone and lost the best baby
That I ever had
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I wish I had a river so long
I would teach my feet to fly
Oh I wish I had a river
I could skate away on
I made my baby say goodbye

It’s coming on Christmas
They’re cutting down trees
They’re putting up reindeer
And singing songs of joy and peace
I wish I had a river
I could skate away on

“The Americans are funny.  You have a funny sense of time-or perhaps you have no sense of time at all, I can’t tell.  Time always sounds like a parade chez vous-a triumphant parade, like armies with banners entering a town.  As though, with enough time, and that would not need to be so very much for Americans, n’est-ce-pas?” and then he smiled, giving me a mocking look, but I said nothing.  “Well then,” he continued, “as though with enough time and all that fearful energy and virtue you people have, everything will be settled, solved, put in its place.  And when I say everything,” he added, grimly, “I mean all the serious, dreadful things, like pain and death and love, in which you Americans do not believe.”

-james baldwin, giovanni’s room.