Jinga-ling ling jing a ling ling...

Christmas is coming and people seem to be getting into it- deep. Despite the weak US retail indicators on Wall Street or whatever, it seems people can't get enough of shopping on Main St and Robson. Bad job? Bad credit? Bad indicators? "Nuthin's gonna stop me from gettin my daughter a Ipod this christmas!" Seems to be the motto. I've been listening to a lot of modern Christmas Carols at work and in malls and everywhere even when the music's stopped it continues to circulate in my subconscious long after. Thank you Jesus! Thanks Father Christmas! With a big shout out to Maria Cary, David Bowie and George Michael who seem to be everywhere on the xmas Muzak scene which is an indicator to me that the whole Christmas spirit thing is kinda like Broadway Musicals - about 10 years behind on the cultural chic-o-metre. However, speaking of chic, being a fan of early Hip Hop I do like Kurtis Blow's seminal carol (there's two words not oft co-located), and ingeniously named, "Christmas Rappin" which seems to very closely echo one of my favorite disco tunes of all time: Chic's Good Times. Now that's a Christmas tune if I ever heard one. James Brown also produced a very very good Christmas album entitled "James Brown's Funky Christmas". ...and it is. - so... options are out there. Here's my Christmas advice, load up Good Times, crank the VOL, crack the Cuban rum, and bust a move on that 5 dollar-a-square-foot-per-month linoleum you've been squandering by cooking stir-frys alone waiting for "Lost" to come on. Do it, do it for St. Nick! Oh, and if you want some friends to come over, may as well invite them too; more's the merrier.