I read somewhere a few weeks ago that James Taylor had a Christmas album coming out that would be available only in Hallmark stores, for $6.95 with the purchase of three cards. Perhaps due in part to a lack of real good Chanukah music, I kind of like Christmas music. Not stuff with the word Jesus in it, because that makes me feel like I'm betraying my religion, but We Three Kings is a lovely song (even though I have no idea who the three kings are), and the Jazz Chorus I was in during high school did a version of that Chestnuts Roasting song that was very cool, with an absolutely unbelievable soloist who if he isn't still singing it is a real shame because he had an amazing voice. We did a Christmas concert one year in the lobby of the Cushman and Wakefield building in midtown Manhattan somewhere that I remember very vividly.

I happened to pass a Hallmark store today. They had a sign for the James Taylor album. I have some friends with November birthdays. I had a few minutes to kill.

I read an article a long while ago that said Hallmark's biggest problem was that guys don't buy cards. Girls buy cards for everything -- birthdays, holidays, Secretary's Day, the 90th anniversary of the Titanic disaster, your first pair of shoes, whatever. But guys don't buy cards. And, even more so, if they do buy cards, they don't go into Hallmark stores. They buy them at truck stops. Or at CVS. When they're buying knives and bullets and generic-brand shampoo.

And the article was right. I was the only guy in the Hallmark store. And I actually felt a little uncomfortable about it. No one cared, no one was looking at me funny, but there were like ten women in the store, and me. Looking at cards. And really quickly picking them out so I could leave. :) So I bought the CD. And I just got home a little while ago, and so I'm listening to the CD right now for the first time.

And it's not that good.

Oh well.