Friday October 27th

Day 127, Session 49:
Location: Training away from work before hitting reheasal
First song: Christmas of Love by Little Isidore & The Inquisitors
Last full song: Circles by Soul Coughing
Progress: 646-659 of 4482
Total Songs Heard: 574

Made it through all the Christmas songs today, or at least all the ones that start with the word Christmas. Turns out there were 16 of them. That works out fine for writing this now, but was a bit strange in late October when these first came around. The Christmas Eve shopping trip with my sister once again worked to perfection. In fact, this year we improved on the trip by finding the back exit from the shopping center. Waiting in traffic to escape the Best Buy/Barnes and Noble parking lot? Totally for suckers.

I can't quite understand why Christmastime (Oh Yeah) doesn't get play on any of those 24-hour-a-day-from-Thanksgiving-through-Christmas stations. It's family friendly, it's got nice Christmas style harmonies, Barenaked Ladies will play on any radio station that isn't hard rock or R&B (and how many of those stations play Christmas music anyway?) but I've never heard it. I imagine it's almost impossible to break a new Christmas song on to one of those stations. I'm pretty sure they've been playing the same loop of music since the mid-80s (right after Do They Know It's Christmas? came out.) Just one more super annoying thing about the state of corporate radio.

The only thing that does change from year-to-year on those stations is those horrible "Special Christmas Wish" promos that they play. You know the one. The radio station (through the generous support of listeners like you) has bought Christmas presents for the poor family that is undergoing some hard times this holiday season. You know, Ma was laid off from the whoopie cushion plant and Pa is still in prison and Grandma has the scurvy and Junior has that terrible speech impediment that leads to all the other kids calling him "Stinky" (kids can be so non-sensical when they're cruel.) "Well," the soft-voiced DJ says, "we know how hard this Christmas is for you, so we've bought Tickle Me Elmos and Nicorette gum for everyone. All it will cost you is your dignity cause we'll be playing this promo every 22 minutes for the next 32 days." And then Ma blubbers into the phone, but not before remembering to drop the station catch phrase in there.

Meanwhile, I throw up in my car, but at least I wasn't waiting in traffic.

Merry Christmas everybody!