In Rotation: Finishing It Off for Another Year

The end of the Christmas season is always the most brutal here in retail land. Between December 13th and January 8th, I have three days off. Thirteen hours is the average shift length. And, everybody is in such a fabulous mood.

We close early December 24th, around five o'clock. I run out of the store, jump into my already packed car (or, in this case, my brother's already packed car that I borrowed), and head north to the family holiday rendezvous point in Brown County. I stop just over 10 miles up the road at the Love's truck stop in Memphis to change my clothes and grab two 16 oz. Red Bulls. On the way up I listen to Christmas music on the radio. This year, I actually enjoyed the music. Old age is turning me into a sap.

I get a little burst of energy when I get to camp to see my family, but by eleven, I'm usually out on one of the couches. Next day is a flurry, and too early it's over.

39 hours after close on Christmas Eve, I'm back on 65 South, on my way into work. From there, it's straight through to New Years Eve, then work on New Year's Day. Finally, by the 8th, it's over, and I sleep for two days.

Anyway, I hate to foist another damn playlist on y'all, but here's another damn playlist. It's what I have time for right now. More cool stuff in the near future (I gots plans!).

Sunn O))) – White 1 and Black One
Debussey – La mer and "Clair de Lune"
Mono – Under the Pipal Tree
Sun Ra & Walt Dickerson – Visions
Prisonshake – We’re Really Fucked Now
Rush – “Bytor and the Snow Dog” (from All the World’s a Stage)
The Flesh Eaters – No Questions Asked
John Coltrane – The Impulse Years
Sonny Sharrock – Ask the Ages and Guitar
Marnie Sterne – This is it . . .
Teodoro Anzellotti – Erik Satie Compositeur de Musique
Prokofiev – Alexander Nevsky
Jimi Hendrix – First Rays of the New Rising Sun and Live at the Fillmore East
Gun Club – Fire of Love
Cecil Taylor – The Cecil Taylor Unit
Malcolm X – “There’s No Such Thing as a Non-violent Revolution” (from Words from the Frontlines: Excerpts from the Great Speeches of Malcolm X)
Led Zeppelin – Physical Graffiti (sides 3 and 4)
Fauré – Requiem
Harry Partch – “A Dream"

Bonus irrelevance: there was a punk rocker tonight on House. He supposedly makes "horrible, ugly music". In one scene, House is listening to the punk rocker's music to try to figure it out, and it turned out to be Pussy Galore's Dial M for Motherfucker ("Dwda", I believe).

Just so you know.