Happy holidays.

I’m so grateful for the year I’ve had. It’s given me plenty of grief yet growth and the opportunity to show personal grit.

There’s a lot of love I have for my vinyl community fam. Glad that so many of you dorks have come into my life. There’s a shit ton of potential for the VC to be a bunch of elitist bastards; and sure, there are some who hate on cheesy reels and worry that stuff along those lines will somehow water down the foundations of loving music. If we weren’t all a bit self-promotional, there wouldn’t be a bunch of us on the Insta or some other platform of choice, showin’ our cutie patoots with records and stuff.

Personally, I don’t know how many times you’ve listened to whatever you’re taking pictures with or if you can actually name three songs without google because you happen to look young and your tits are cleverly hidden behind a color splattered pressed remaster of “The Number of the Beast.” Honestly, I also don’t care. You seem happy and I’m fortunate enough to witness that with you. If you’re doing it simply for likes and follows, rather, I feel like there’s better methods for validation than pretending to like cassettes and records on Instagram but…you do you, boo boos.

For me, music fuels the season, and will only propel me into 2023. Between the sounds of my daughter’s dr-Uncle’s off-key falsetto version of “O Holy Night” or the mangy dog trying to break up our empty wrapping paper roll jousting, it’s what is consistent and comforting to me. I’m currently on my third Christmas cocktail en route to a good Christmas drunk trying to survive the Christmas carnage of consumption. My dog is taking hits of scrap wrapping paper off the floor like it’s LSD. Enjoying a classic Wisconsin Christmas feast complete with Racine Kringle and several thousand pounds of cheese, direct from the aptly named small town of Rudolph.

Beyond that though, I have a number of affiliate partnerships that will begin in the new year and plan to do a few video-casts so I can talk at you about records and shows. Maybe I’ll even open a brick and mortar business, as my fave coffee shop in Madison recently went to a new location leaving a vacancy that should be filled. A chick can dream. And I’ve been dreaming for 2023 since shortly after 2022 started. It’s finally almost here and I’m feeling brighter.

However you celebrate, make it a good one. I’m estranged from all my blood family where I was so much a black sheep anyway, and on many Christmases, I feel like such a stranger serving a life that I don’t belong in. Today is no exception and it’s hard to fight the flight urge. For those of you who know this feeling, I’m with you. 

Appreciate the light and love and spirit as you can today. Find as much joy as possible in others. Let shit go. And give yourself permission to sneak away for a Christmas giggle grass sesh, too. (It helps.) Willie Nelson did say, “May you all get higher than that angel on the top of the tree.”

Again, happy holidays. See you again in 2023. 🎄