Hit me! Good Gawd Y'all. AAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!

James Brown during a concert in Shanghai, China, this year. (image from Boston.com: Eugene Hoshiko/ Associated Press)

Damn. James Brown - the Godfather of Soul - died yesterday. Granted, in a way I'm surprised he made it to age 73. At the same time I figured he was just too damned ornery to die despite all the party hardy abuse he put himself through over the years and would outlive us all. Get down James, go 'head, get down.

On the home front all's well. The house has been stripped of all the Yuletide Pagan symbolism that people have come to accept as Christian symbolism - the lighted tree with the 5-pointed star on top, the mistletoe, candles, the magic flying toy-delivering elf et cetera. Interestingly, most folks don't realize that merry-making was not part of what the early Christians did at Christmastime at all. Au contraire! Their idea of celebrating their myth wasn't celebratory at all. Instead the pious would fast and pray (prostate on the ground no less) for a couple of weeks in the dead of winter. Oh what fun it is to ride. Sooo, in order to convert the Pagans to Christianity, the early church had to allow them to keep their Yule festivities, which Christians today interpret as their own. Ignorance is not necessarily bliss. Enjoy your tree.