The older I get, the less excited I get over Christmas and the more excited for New Years I become. This is due to a bunch of stuff I'd rather not get into right now, but there are a few I want to tackle head on. I moonlight as a salesman in a chain store in a mall. I know what you're thinking, "Hey Divo, I thought you got a briefcase full of cash to continue with It Came from the Desert", while this may be true, I'd like to stay on my toes and keep my fingers on the pulse of society, so what better place than a mall during "The Holiday Season"?
Since this is primarily a music blog, let's start there. Retail stores and gas stations across America have reached a consensus that listening to satellite radio would be the most bland, generic, and most of all inoffensive alternative than local radio, which is supported by local businesses, and for the most part is employed by locals. I guess local radio isn't repetitive enough or maybe it's those damn commercials. Anyway, around the middle November, everyone changed their channel to SiriusXM Holly, it's the hip holiday music channel, not to be confused with the one that plays more traditional songs or Hanuka music (I know right).
Anyway, Holly may boast a large play list at first glance, but until you see that there are only 89 songs performed by many different artists, it starts to feel like the same 30 songs are on a loop. I don't know what Holly is trying to do here? Is their goal to make people who work in retail have a jolly mental breakdown or make sure that people don't tune into their station for more than 30 minutes. In contrast, Holiday 91.7 has a library of thousands upon thousands of Christmas songs spanning all eras and is commercial free. Hearing Judy Garland's version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas actually got my in the spirit to give and love and be merry rather than to kill.
Honestly SiriusXM program directors, how long did it take you guys to whip this up? You're getting paid to do this? The reason why people subscribe to satellite is that there should be better options along with excellent reception and no commercials. What happened? How come a 2000 watt college radio station in Scranton, Pennsylvania can do your job, but better? And no one is getting paid. Step it up. I don't think that anyone thinks "Oh great, Holly is back, Hell Yes." and doesn't touch their satellite receiver until December 26th. If there is that person, I would never want to hang out with them. On a side note, the Holly DJ, "Mrs. Clause" has a grand total of 6 bumpers/talk breaks. Did you know that a man in Cleveland left accidentally left a duffel bag of his years salary on a bus and some dude for the coalition for a better Cleveland found it and gave it back? I did, I heard the story twice a day for 40 days.
One more thing, I'm not the most religious guy in the world, but to me, nothing diminishes these songs more than hearing them in a store. I'm not talking about a mom and pop grocery store, I mean Wal Mart or something like that. When you're covered in a blanket of fluorescent lights pushing a germ infested cart around looking the perfect last minute gift and a Christmas song is blaring through the sound system in hopes of getting you in the spirit of the holidays and buy buy buy. Using Christmas music to make people want to buy is kinda... meh, I don't know, sacrilegious? I'm not complaining about capitalism or anything, I just think that some of that stuff is in poor taste, you're going to sell the same amount of stuff if your regular musak play list is running. And when you're finally ready to site down and listen to it at home, you;re burnt out on it, but what do they care.
Anyway, it's all over for another year so I should quit my bitching. Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all wrote Santa and wished for another exciting season of It Came from the Desert, I sure did.
