It's the penultimate day of 2006. Being that Peg and I decided to stay put for this year's holiday season (as opposed to flying to Texas as we have in years past), I'd volunteered to man the ship at The Job during what is widely regarded to be the "slowest week of the year" between Christmas and New Year's. Back at my previous job at TIME, we usually had this particular week off (or "dark" as we called it). This wasn't the scenario at my new job (though lots of folks took vacation days anyway), nor evidently was it back over at TIME. In any case, even though the news team was reduced to somewhat of a skeleton crew, I was relatively sure that we could handle any unexpected curve balls that might be pitched our way.
Well, lemme tell ya, it was quite a week. Between the unexpected deaths of James Brown (and his accompanying memorial service at the Apollo Theater...and then his actual burial in Augusta, GA today) and President Gerald Ford and the execution of Saddam Hussein, we had ourselves quite a busy little week. But, we sailed through it and got the job done with aplomb, even with a fraction of our normal staff on hand. I was very proud to be a member of the the Job's team this week.
I've also been updating Flaming Pablum throughout these last few days, largely oblivious to the fact that, much like the website I work for, nine-tenths of the regular readers were away. With this mind, for those of you who may have been off skiing in the French Alps or scuba diving in the Cayman Islands or bass fishing in Abu Dhabi or spelunking in Alexandria, Egypt or doing whatever it was whereever your holidays took you, herewith a brief rundown of items from this past week that you might have missed or are too lazy to scroll down for...
1. My December installment of Currently in Rotation
2. My Top 5 Reasons for not doing a Year End Top 10 List
3. My stab at the Motion Picture Soundtrack survey
4. A trio of my favorite Christmas tunes
5. My Christmas rundown
6. My ruminations on the death of James Brown
7. The Curse of the Death T-shirt
8. Some thoughts regarding the late, great Pussy Galore
9. My incredulous rage at the misappropriation of a Spinal Tap song
10. Ruminations on the entirely unlikely possiblity of Killing Joke appearing on SNL or on the cover of Rolling Stone
There, that should bring your more or less up to date.
2006, meanwhile, ends tomorrow. Personally speaking, it was a massive year for me, largely based on the one-two punch of the birth of my son, Oliver, back in March and the start of my new job back in January. It was a year of intense change, new friends, new challenges and a lot less sleep. I'm looking forward to what lays ahead in 2007. So, until then...Happy New Year!
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