In the final countdown to Christmas, I have been doing the requisite running around to complete the plan. So much of what we do these days can be accomplished on the web. But sometimes it is good to get out and get person to person. To see who shares our town. To shop locally, to enjoy a latte and the ubiquitous Christmas music that the stores have been playing since before Thanksgiving. There is a wonderful multi-culturalism in Austin, as there is across America. This year has been a flurry of travel for me. Places, each with their own blend of immigrants, customs, and ethos. Each with a different cadence to their speech, echoed in their regional cuisines, micro-beers, wine and the rest. I am a supporter of "Ma and Pa" operations. Not that I don't wind up in the big stores too, but I seek out the unique one-offs when I can. And I love getting into those conversations, slices of real time during which we share our lives in a most compressed way that affirms our commonality. I walk out with a smile. This is America, a giant community, set into hills and dales, by river banks and ocean shores, building up and building out into a sprawl, creeping still, ever further. The Los Angeles-izing of the rest of the country.

When I moved to LA in 1985, it was a brave new world for me as a New York native. There was Valley-Girl speech, Wolfgang Puck cuisine, and Alternative Rock in the air. There were mudslides and earthquakes, and forest fires sometimes fueled by these winds that just made you itchy. The Santa Anas. It was the first time I experienced their oppressive power. I don't know what, if anything, prompted the Sons of Bill to do a song about the Santa Anas. I promise I will ask when we see them at MusicFest in Steamboat Springs in just a couple of weeks. The Sons of Bill are hard at work on their third album, which is being produced by Cracker's David Lowery. Look for it to be out this coming Spring. Here's a swaggering hard rocking video to shake you up this Sunday, a new tune called "Santa Ana Winds." Just accept it as a bit of energy to propel you into the final push for your holiday preparations.

- Jessie Scott