the ultimate Christmas album
A few years ago, I was complaining yet again about traditional Christmas music, and the cheesy Christmas-sweater-wearing guys who sing it, when the Wife smartly suggested I put together a CD of Christmas music I actually would want to listen to. And so a tradition was born -- one for which I spend way too many hours scouring iTunes in search of both modern renditions of traditional holiday songs and entirely new holiday songs by modern artists.
Here's what got onto the CD this year:
- The Christmas Song, The Raveonettes
- Don't Shoot Me Santa, The Killers
- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Bare Naked Ladies & Sarah McLachlan
- A Change at Christmas (Say It Isn't So), The Flaming Lips
- Father Christmas, The Kinks
- Christmas Time, Aimee Mann
- Home on Christmas Day, Cyndi Lauper
- I Saw Three Ships, Sting
- Christmastime, Smashing Pumpkins
- Christmas, Leona Naess
- Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), U2
- O Holy Night, Tracy Chapman
- Christmas All Over Again, Tom Petty
- Silent Night, Stevie Nicks
- 2000 Miles, Pretenders
Here are some other selections that have made it onto CDs in years past:
- Calling on Mary, Aimee Mann
- Thank God It's Christmas, Queen
- Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, The Smithereens
- Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, Bruce Springsteen
- Do They Know It's Christmas?, Band Aid
- Merry Christmas (I Don't Want to Fight Tonight), The Ramones
- Happy Christmas, John Lennon
- Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, Pretenders
- Heavy Metal Christmas, Twisted Sister
- Oi to the World, No Doubt
- Lonely Christmas Without You, Mick Jagger
- Christmas in America, Melissa Etheridge
- Here is Christmas, Heart
- I Believe in Father Christmas, Emerson, Lake & Palmer
- Children Go Where I Send Thee, Natalie Merchant
- Yellin' At the Xmas Tree, Billy Idol
- Ave Marie + Intro, Chris Cornell and Eleven
parts wearing out
The surest way to realize that you're getting older -- that your body is getting older -- is to inexplicably injure yourself doing the exact same thing you've been doing every single day for years. And I'm not even talking about one of those crick-in-the-neck sort of things you feel when you wake up some mornings, but rather the type of injury that sneaks up on you one unremarkable afternoon and makes you say out loud, "Ooh, that smarts."
Better yet, make it a slow-healing injury that disrupts everything -- the way you work, the way you sit, the way you drive a car, even the way you sleep. But absolutely, absolutely make sure it has no outwardly visible symptoms. That way, you can surprise even yourself with just how fake your excuse sounds when you say, "Sorry, I can't help you with that right now on account of my injury."
blue heron, richmond, ca
san diego, continued
Walking down the main street through town, we surprised a family of deer (and they us). They'd apparently been forced out of the canyon to the road's edge to find food.
post-fire, san diego, ca
