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In another life, Mike is the founder of Lost Voices, a nonprofit group founded to bring creative writing and roots music programs to incarcerated and at-risk kids. He was recently named USA Today Kindness Community Hero for this work.
2010 - The Year In Preview
OK, we've got 2009 behind us. Once again it's time for me to dust off the Ouija Board, lay out the Tarot Cards, gaze at the coffee grounds (I'm not too crazy about tea), get into the old Rum & Eggnog, and let you all in on what's going to happen in the coming year.
January: The University of Michigan football team fails to play in a bowl game for the second year in a row, after 33 straight postseason appearances. Dedicated U of M fans take up a collection to buy second-year head coach Rich Rodriguez a one-way bus ticket to West Virginia. Dedicated West Virginia University fans chip in and buy him a ticket back to Ann Arbor.
John Mayer in a Bear Suit
Here is one way to kill time before a concert:
My Favorite Holiday Treat
Today is Christmas Eve. In my circle of friends and family, this marks the last turn into the home stretch of the season's Holiday parties. This year was more hectic than usual because I had readings and signings to promote the new book*, along with a bit of guitar-strumming and speaking for Lost Voices.
Now when most folks write about Holiday parties, it seems like they just want to gripe about them. I think they are just mad because they have to put on clean socks. Or, in my case, socks.
But you won't hear me griping. If you know me you know that I love all kinds of parties. I particularly love the kind that feature eggnog with rum in it, tables creaking under mountains of candy and fruitcakes, and sappy Christmas music. Especially the music. After fifty-eight years of listening to Bing Crosby croon "White Christmas," I still can't get enough.
Of course my favorite Holiday treat is what happens all day long on Christmas Eve.
It begins when I go out in the morning to get an early start on my gift shopping, and I notice that even though there is a lot of last-minute rushing around going on, everyone is in a good mood. This is a pleasant change from the past few weeks. Ever since Thanksgiving people have been getting progressively more cranky as their bank balances dwindle and road salt cakes up on their loafers.
The Story of Carlson the Christmas Angel
Carlson was not a particularly happy Angel. You see, he wasn’t allowed to live in Heaven. He was a Guardian Angel, which meant that he had to hang around on Earth, taking care of his Client, Bob.
Now, Guardian Angel duty was about the most difficult job an Angel could have, even under the 
best of circumstances. Angels couldn’t change what their Clients said or did; they could only try to protect them from accidents. Or, more commonly, from the consequences of their actions.
Some Clients were really good people, always risking their lives to help others, and this sort of thing could keep a Guardian Angel pretty busy. Other Clients were hopelessly slow-witted or accident prone, and they needed a Guardian Angel around constantly just to keep them from getting their scarves caught in the wood chipper.
Santwilight
OK, has anybody besides me noticed that Santa Claus is not getting as much attention as he used to get? At Christmas time when I was a kid, you could not throw a candy cane without hitting a fat guy in a red suit and beard. It seemed like every TV, magazine or newspaper ad featured the old boy peeking out from behind a Christmas tree, or holding up a bottle of Coke with a carbohydrate-fueled twinkle in his eye.
What happened? These days all we see are strangely-dressed pre-teen girls doing drumline dance routines, mannequins sliding across the ice in Rockefeller Plaza, and Geoffrey the Giraffe helping some little animated children loot a Toys R Us store. Santa has been all but forgotten.
Well, I've decided to do something about this situation. First, I came to the conclusion that here in the Information Age everybody should know a just little bit more about Santa. It seems logical that if people understand him better, they might like him more.
So I got busy and went to work on the problem with my new BFFs Angela and Jessica, blew off the surfing party on the Indian Reservation, dug around in some books of old Quileute legends, and came to a startling conclusion:
Santa Claus is a vampire!
