HAPPY ANNIVERSARY: THE CHRISTMAS CLASSIC

For all, not just the Irish, who will not be going home for Christmas. Fairytale of New York in twenty years old this December. I know you've heard it a million times already but you can watch how all the boys looked in their prime, yes TWENTY YEARS. I have very fond memories of the song itself as I returned to Ireland, for the first time in five years, the year it was released. There was little or no crossing of the cultures at that time, very little MTV, little in the computer world and certainly no Internet. I had not heard it in NYC. I don't know if it was even released that first year so to arrive in Ireland and find some old mates with the # 2 song in the UK, #1 in Ireland and for it to be set in my new home town, in the middle of Christmas, seemed right and fitting indeed. It was being sung in every pub by every man, woman and child who had any kind of a voice at all. The fact that it has held up so well is a testament to Jem Fenner and Shane for writing a brilliant and poignant piece of music. That it has reached the heady heights, in terms of its Christmas legacy, makes all us Pats and exPats and New Yorkers a little proud, a Christmas song of our own. It was voted the #1 Christmas song of all time in the UK the last 3 years running. And of course here's to Kristy, who must be looking down on all this and wondering how that old " cheap lousy faggot" is still alive and singing that song. She must be thinking "Happy Christmas me arse" is right.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA WILDFIRE REMNANTS

Here are some of the images from my series of the California wildfires. I set out on this project with very little preconceived ideas about what it might look like except I wanted to shoot large format(naturally) and give it my own spin. Shot over a period of three days, just as if it was an assignment, I covered a fair amount of territory and captured varying degrees of destruction and how it affected its surrounding environment. My wife's family and many friends all live close to the firing lines so I'm reasonably familiar with these deserts, which was a help and it also made it more personal as we followed the coverage very closely as the fires themselves were raging. Unlike Katrina, this is such a personal almost individual catastrophe. Not everyone was touched by the blazes, the randomness at which the fires touched down meant people from the same street shared very different experiences. Your house burned to the ground, your next-door neighbor's fine, not a scratch (plate 1). How do you get your head around that? Living in the desert the blaze could pass you by 10 feet and your safe, or pick you out like a heat seeking missile and torch you (Plate 3). On the photographic side, after looking at 30 or so images I found some familiar threads running though this and my previous series which was pleasing, but it feels unfinished so a return in the new year is in the works.

THE WEEKENDER (Yuletide Edition)

The Weekender and wife took the ludicrously scenic Route 22, up New York State, instead of the Taconic to Old Queechy last Saturday in hopes of procuring all thinks Kringle. On leaving Millerton and coming over a hill we were offered this Grandma Moses vantage of the most beauteous Taconic Hills. It really doesn't get any more Yuley that this. Go here for larger view

A CHRISTMAS TRADITION

This is one of the many thing I love about being a New Yorker. I heard this show the first year I arrived in the city and thought I'd found everyone I had been looking for.

"Just before Christmas in 1970, Jonathan Schwartz decided to do something a little different for his morning show at the late, still-lamented WNEW-AM.

He asked his father, songwriter Arthur Schwartz, to fly in from London and join him to talk about music, play some of that music and sing songs.

Thirty-eight Christmases later, Arthur Schwartz is gone. But the show goes on, and Sunday on WNYC (93.9 FM), Jonathan will host what has now become his annual Christmas talk-and-music gathering, noon-4 p.m.

This time around, guests will include Andrew Bergman, John Wideman, Charles Osgood, Tierney Sutton, the John Pizzarelli Quartet, John Guare, Jessica Molasky, Tony Monte, Mark Simone, Hillary Kole, Mike Renzi, Jay Leonhart, Judy Carmichael, Harry Allen and various members of the Schwartz family - which in a real sense, says Schwartz, describes everyone there.

"It's a show that's about family," he says - a family that makes music and talks about a wide range of subjects in a way that makes the listener feel part of the family, too.

It's one of New York radio's warmest holiday traditions." NY DAILY NEWS.

Along with Phil Schapp he has probably the greatest encyclopedic mind for American Popular Music but in terms of broadcasting he has no peer

This is simulcast on XM Satailite radio

Along with Aimee Mann's 2nd Christmas Extravaganza on Friday night, this will get me totally in the spirit of the season.