World Turning

We’re in pre-holiday mode again around here. Granted, that isn’t much different than our regular mode. The big difference is that we worry less about the remunerative labor we should be doing but aren’t.
I was thinking the other day about Thanksgiving of 1966, the year I was in first grade. That was the year I [...]

Stranded and Frozen

Now and then something happens to you, and you realize while it is happening that you will be talking about it for years to come.
On the night of December 23, 1983, The Mrs. and I, married eight months, were packing for a trip home, our first trip back to Wisconsin since moving to Macomb, Illinois, [...]

Christmas With Elton

I only wanted one thing for Christmas in 1974: Elton John’s Greatest Hits.
It came out in November, and every time I went into a record store, ultra-cool Elton would look back at me through those tinted glasses, and I wanted to take the record home. Better to wait for Christmas, I thought. Well, sure enough, [...]

Christmas on the Radio

Sophisticated broadcast automation and satellite-delivered formats have freed a lot of DJs to get Christmas off. The station goes on auto-pilot, the last person out locks the door, and nobody comes back until the 26th. Some younger broadcasters may never have worked the night shift on Christmas Eve or the morning show on Christmas Day. [...]

What Is Once Heard Cannot Be Un-heard . . .

. . .  and that’s a damn shame.
For the last 15 years or so, I have considered “Santa’s Beard” by the Beach Boys to be the worst Christmas record of all time. I hate the way it modulates to a lower key, I hate the lyrics, and I hate the way Mike Love sings them.
[...]

Top 5: The Christmas Podcast That Wasn’t

I am not going to get a Christmas podcast together this year. But it’s Friday and we need a Top 5, so here are some tunes I would have put on the podcast if I’d gotten around to it.
Purple Reign: Holiday tunes from the classic era at Motown are thick on the ground, but Marvin [...]