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

Something 4 The Weekend # 112

The Jam: Sound Affects: "That's Entertainment" [mp3]

Paul Weller can do no wrong in my world. Whether it was The Jam, The Style Council, or his subsequent solo career, everything he does is pure gold. He's proven himself to be a master songwriter in pretty much any style he chooses, he's an astute lyricist, a surpisingly soulful singer, and a pretty righteous guitarist.

And I wish I could claim that I "discovered" Paul Weller on my own, but the truth of the matter is that it was my younger sister who actually introduced me to The Jam. I have no idea how or why she liked The Jam, because they were so different than the stuff she usually listened to back then - The Bee Gees, Shaun Cassidy, Bay City Rollers, etc. But damn if she didn't have two or three Jam albums in her collection, and I remember hearing their All Mod Cons album thumping through the wall separating our bedroom one day, and I was pretty much immediately hooked.

So, thank you, sister Starsky, for 30+ years of solid entertainment. Excellent fucking call.

Hotcha! Hank

Underground Sideways Maneuver

OMG, Paul is soooo HOTTT!!!!!!

Such are the comments at YouTube, and hey, the ladies are right...Of course, this is a song about Thatcher's England and the blight of conservative politics in general, racial unrest in the UK, and Reagan's cowboy diplomacy and Cold War tensions..."Going Underground" wasn't just about disconnecting from mainstream society, it was also about getting down in the bunker, waiting for the bombs to start falling everywhere...

That's entertainment! This is The Jam.

Hotcha! Hank