The World According To Carl

Just spent Saturday doing some extra (and hopefully final) Christmas shopping on the south side of Tallahassee and had intended to go to my favorite local used CD store, CD Warehouse, because they always put out a fairly large number of used Christmas CD’s and the guy that works there KNOWS I am a Christmas CD junkie.

We got some Christmas wrapping materials from Michael’s craft store. Prior to that we stopped by Bed Bath & Beyond and got some bath stuff for my Momma and ended up buying more stuff for my nephew, my inlaws and some friends. Now we’re going to have to be a little late on the mortgage payment. Oh well.

Anyway, the last stop on the shopping trip was CD Warehouse and I pulled in the strip mall where they are, drove up to the front of the store and…

Where’s the heck is the store???

Even though the sign on the marquee by the road was there and the sign on the storefront was there, the store that WAS there was some sort of fru-fru women’s gift shop. So from my cell phone, Nancy called and found that although there were 5 stores previously, now there are only two and NEITHER of them were close enough to where we presently were to make the trip.

So we went with a quickly constructed backup plan: Vinyl Fever.

Now in early 2006, Tallahassee’s Vinyl Fever was sold to a Tampa-based record chain and they promised they would not only not change what was already there in terms of used CD’s but due to their overall volume they would actually greatly expand the used CD inventory. And true to their word, they did. However when Christmas of 2006 approached, their used Christmas selection really sucked. It was miniscule at best and most everything they had was stuff I already owned. They had a plethora of new CD’s and ridiculously high prices but unless if was something I just HAD to have immediately (and in 2006 there weren’t anything like that) I’d wait for ebay auctions or see if the CD Warehouse stores had a better selection. And they always did.

This past Saturday, we went with the hastily constructed backup plan of going to Vinyl Fever even though I strongly suspected their used CD selection would once again me miniscule.

I was right.

And as it was in 2006 their new Christmas CD selection was pretty large. Not as large as last year but a nice selection nonetheless. Most of it I already own but I did find two “I gotta get NOW regardless of the high new price” selections: “Christmas With The Smithereens” by The Smithereens (one of my all-time favorite groups) and “Songs For Christmas”, a boxed set from Sufjan Stevens. I also found a handful of used CD’s to get fairly cheap: Lee Ann Womack’s “The Season For Romance”; Universal/Motown’s 20th Century Masters collections CDs from James Brown and Stevie Wonder (2 separate CDs – not duets); the soundtrack for the movie “Christmas With The Kranks”; and a various artists Christmas CD entitled “City On A Hill: It’s Christmas Time.” So the slightly-out-of-the-way trip wasn’t a total bust.

Oh I almost forgot to mention; prior to the scheduled Christmas shopping, Nancy and I stopped by Staples (an office supply store) to pick up some stuff for both our jobs and also some Scotch tape for wrapping. We also always check the clearance section to see if they have anything interesting in it (nothing that day). On our way to the checkout counter we found a small bin of discounted Christmas CD’s and I bought some good’uns: “Christmas…Back In Indiana” by The Bill Gaither Trio; “Songs For Christmas” by Andy Williams; & “That Special Time Of The Year” by Gladys Knight & The Pips.

So you can see by this list how varied my tastes are in regards to Christmas music. I enjoy good Christmas music regardless of the genre. In fact you can view the list of Christmas CDs in my collection but clicking here. If you happen to run across something that’s not on my list, I wouldn’t mind if you’d send me a copy.

I truly would love to host another Christmas eve radio show of varied Christmas music like I did in 1995. My collection has grown greatly since then and I could easily pull an 8+ hour shift and present a much better show than the couple of stations locally that change to an all-Christmas music format for the holidays. I know that I would present a much better variety of Christmas music than they, or any of the other stations, could with just my own personal collection of almost 600 Christmas CDs. I tried this last year since I was unemployed and had plenty of time on my hands. I even put together fancy (yet inexpensive) promotional kits that I sent out to all the regional stations in late August with follow-ups letters in late October and also around Thanksgiving but had no takers. One station’s PD of the “lite jazz” station did email me back and told me he already had plans to go to a satellite service for the holiday music but would love to have me do the show this year. I planned on contacting him to take him up on the offer but two months ago I got a fulltime job with the State of Florida (after a long time – over a year – of not having a fulltime job anywhere) and being the low person on the list in my section, I’m slated to work Christmas Eve. Not Christmas Eve during the day like a normal 9-5 job but the ACTUAL Christmas Eve. ‘Til 11pm. Not that I’m complaining. I’d much rather have the job than still be unemployed and being able to do the Christmas Eve show. However, in my heart, I still hope to do the Christmas Eve radio show someday and impress the station so much that they make it an annual event.

And a hearty and positively politically incorrect “Ho-ho-ho!” to readers from Outside the Beltway, Stop the ACLU, The Virtuous Republic, Perri Nelson’s Website, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Stix Blog, Right Truth, The Populist, Shadowscope, The Pet Haven Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Adeline and Hazel, third world county, Woman Honor Thyself, Pirate’s Cove, The Pink Flamingo, CommonSenseAmerica, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, Stageleft, Church and State, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, A Blog For All, guerrilla radio, 123beta, Adam’s Blog, Grizzly Groundswell, Big Dog’s Weblog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Cao’s Blog, Conservative Cat, Nuke’s, Diary of the Mad Pigeon, Faultline USA, Allie is Wired, Blue Star Chronicles, Wolf Pangloss, CORSARI D’ITALIA, High Desert Wanderer, Gone Hollywood, and The Yankee Sailor. Also thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 18th, 2007 at 3:27 pm and is filed under General, LinkFests, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.