Definition of a Good Day

Day after a nice Thanksgiving day with the grandkids. Good food, good wine, family yesterday. Even if only part of the family, it's good. My daughter, bless her, brought me the chocolate chip cookies I requested. Nice day. And today? Well, today had three excellent things. My granddaughter, who is seven, came over to help her Mimi decorate the house for Christmas, and she stayed the whole afternoon. Two, all the Christmas decorating got done today. No more to do. All the boxes put up. House looking great. And three, I received in the mail this morning the latest batch of CDs my friend down in Louisiana has burned for me. Fifty of them! This is like getting a $500 gift certificate for iTunes downloads, and buying all those tunes at once. 

This is the fifth batch of CDs I've received from Bill, and by far the largest. I estimate well over 100 CDs from Bill over the past six months. We discovered last summer that we both shared a profound love for music, music of all types. "What kind of music do you like?" they ask. "Everything," I answer truthfully. Everything. Like food or poetry or books, I'm willing to try it if I haven't had it before. I don't know much about jazz, world music, or hip hop, which is not to say I don't appreciate some of it, just that I don't listen to it much. I'm not too crazy about crooners or show music, although there are individual exceptions here, too. But I love the rest of it: reggae, rock, blues, classical, opera, country, some metal, electronic, R&B, and probably know enough about these to be mildly dangerous.

Anyway, this latest batch had just a whole flock of people I'd never heard of. Kings of Leon, for example, over there on the right. And The Mars Volta--well, actually, I have heard of them before, but only because Bill has sent me a previous album--and Fastball, Ozomadi, and Oysterhead and Primus. Plus some familiars: Richard Thompson, Miles Davis, Soundgarden, Kate Bush, Buddy Guy, and Porcupine Tree (another band, one that I really like, that Bill introduced me to a few batches back). The mix of music was wide: rock, blues, metal, a little folk, plus an oddball guy with an irreverent attitude and a potty mouth named Mojo Nixon, whose music is hard to classify. I just called it "Other" on iTunes. Even some holiday music. (By the way, I wish I could have pointed you to the Allmusic site for each of these bands, but it don't work that way. The URL will always default to the generic opening page.)

I'll say one thing for a bunch of new music. It takes your mind off the miserable state of the nation for a while. I fear I soon must address some of these distressing topics soon.