Surviving All That

The Christmas season isn't all saccharine, all gluey sweet, but some of it is. It isn't all twinkly lights and shiny colored orbs on a pretty tree, or GodHelpMe "Walking in a Winter Wonder Land," but way too much of it is. So by the time I make it to December 27, what I want is Springsteen's "Spirit in the Night," top volume. What I need, the way collards need ham, is The Band, The Last Waltz, Mavis Staples and Levon Helm, and "The Weight."

This time of year, if I've survived, I have a dirt-deep, nitty-gritty physical need to hear Janis Joplin scorch "Me and Bobby McGee." In other words, what I need is music that scrubs the residue of all that right out of my soul. It's already too cluttered.

I need to see a winter-dry Maryland field, a gray waterman's sky blistered with reticent blue, and an impervious formation of Canada geese, and after that, a plate of steaming hot red tamales and a painfully cold beer.

Maybe you know what I mean.