May You Always…

Recycling a holiday classic

HOLIDAY TRADITIONS come and go, and one that has certainly come and gone is the annual airing of “May You Always,” a two minute, forty-two second spoken holiday greeting performed by legendary DJ Harry “The Morning Mayor” Harrison and broadcast regularly on New York’s WCBS-FM 101.1 oldies station.

Although it hasn’t graced the airwaves in a good twenty years or so, in its day “May You Always” garnered a cult following among those who snickered at its shameless sentimentality, as well as those who waited eagerly for its first airing each year to bask in the glow of Harry’s genuinely warm and heartfelt delivery. A user by the name of “Sock Hop Saturday Night” even went so far as to post a recording of “the original Amy 45 (the non-politically correct version)” to YouTube in 2009.

AS YOU MAY HAVE surmised from last week’s songfest, we here at AltiM@c are powerless to leave a perfectly good holiday message unsullied by the spirit of parodies present. In fact, I went so far as to pen and even record my own Apple-flavored version of “May You Always” way back in 2005. But since precious few of you have known me for that long, I feel justified in recycling it for 2014–with a few updated tech references to make it seem all shiny and new. So here’s take #2 on this long-lost holiday classic. Enjoy!

May You Always (MYA_2014.mp3, 3.92MB 192kbps MP3 file)

As holiday bells ring out the old year, and sweethearts kiss,
And Mac users struggle through the Yosemite and iOS 8 updates
May I wish you not the biggest and best technology has to offer
But the small victories that make owning all these gizmos worthwhile.

Sometime during the New Year, just to prove you can do it,
May you manage to update Adobe Flash Player without calling anyone for help.
May you find a little island of time to actually read that “Read Me” file,
Or to delete all those duplicate pictures from your iPhoto Library.

May you be able to explain the difference between POP and IMAP without Googling it
May you go through an entire day without once looking up a password
May you know the correct answers to all three of your online banking security questions
May all those people who told you to back up refrain from saying, “I told you to back up.”

May your iPhone enjoy an entire year without being dropped into a public toilet
May that expensive AppleCare support contract rescue your MacBook Pro from an untimely death.
In a time of rampant viruses and spyware, may your Mac be rampant-virus-and-spyware free.
May you be able to pass your old Macbook on to your kids, so they quit screwing up your new iMac.

For a change, on a day when your Mac seems to be working as advertised
May a friend or colleague call on you for help with their computer!
When you zap your PRAM, may it stay zapped!
And, if you happen to mistakenly delete an important file
May you be able to restore it from a Time Machine backup–without calling me to walk you through the process.

May that long and lonely night be brightened by a visit from a FiOS repair technician.
When buying that new iPhone, may you discover that your old one is worth hundreds on eBay–or $10 on Gazelle.com.
When you crash in a 28-page Word document without saving, may there be no one watching to laugh at you–or feel sorry for you.

And sometime soon, may you
Post a video to YouTube successfully
Hold less than five minutes for Comcast tech support
Be told by your grandson that your Internet is “wicked fast”
And be mentioned by Tim Cook in a keynote address.

More than this, no one can wish you.

Happy New Year from the employees and staff of AltiM@c Consulting!