Something 4 THE HOLIDAY Weekend!

The Jam: Extras: "Shopping" [mp3]

I think there's a reason "Shopping" ended up on an album called Extras. It's not that this is a bad song, but it sounds unfocused compared to most songs by The Jam, and to my ears, sounds more like something Paul Weller's next band, The Style Council, might do with the sophisticated chords and jazzy guitar solo. Then again, that unfocused quality captures the meandering essence of windowshopping, the activity of the song.

This weekend of competitive shopping certainly is never casual. Like the pepper-spraying lunatic at a Walmart - that's how a true pro crosses items off a list. I myself took a drive over to the nearest Half-Priced Books at about 10 AM on Friday, armed with a tazer, but the store wasn't busy enough to warrant it's use. After a quick and futile scan of the Anime section, in search of something specific for my youngest niece, who is an Anime freak, I ended up using my 40% off coupon for Kingdom Hearts for the PS2.

Nothing serious.

I spent most of Thanksgiving day laying on the couch, nursing an unknown nausea, and catching glimpses of football games as I catnapped the afternoon away. It occurred to me during a commercial break of the Packers-Lions game that we as Americans have finally come to fully embrace Black Friday as an actual holiday in it's own right, celebrated in its way, rather than something to be endured, which I think had mostly been our nation's stance in the past. Not anymore. I think alot of us, too many of us, have come to warmly anticipate going to Target at midnight to buy small appliances with the stink of cranberry sauce still on our breath.

A nation, staggering around the brightly lit aisles like ghouls, shopping...shopping... Always shopping. So good at it that we can do it in our sleep.

Hotcha! Hank