Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow! As they so often do, the guys at Ego Trip have discovered something amazing.

Bootsy Collins has one of the most impressive resumes in popular music, beginning his career as a bassist with the one-two punch of James Brown and Parliament Funkadelic. More than 40 years after being plucked from obscurity to back up the Godfather of Soul, his new album, The Funk Capitol of the World, seeks to put his life and funk in a historical perspective. Among other things, the death of his brother Phelps "Catfish" Collins compelled him to craft a “musical biography” that would preserve the memory of the people who were most influential to Bootsy: everyone from Catfish to Al Sharpton to Jimi Hendrix and, of course, George Clinton. Bootsy was kind enough to conduct this interview over the phone from Culver City, California. READ MORE

"In the first study they found that twice as many mall shoppers who had just ridden an up escalator contributed to the Salvation Army than shoppers who had just ridden the down escalator ... In a final study, participants watched film clips of scenes taken from an airplane above the clouds, or through the window of a passenger car. Participants who had watched the clip of flying up above the clouds were 50 percent more cooperative in a computer game than those who had watched the car ride down on the ground. Overall these studies show remarkable consistency, linking height and different prosocial behaviors—i.e., donations, volunteering, compassion, and cooperation." READ MORE

Okay. Just two weeks to go. Everybody's sniffling and coughing and more regularly and severely hungover than usual. And feeling guilty about all the extra baked good they're eating. And too busy with planning and shopping and going to holiday parties to even really enjoy any of it. And it's so cold. (Will winter never end??!! Oh, right it hasn't even started yet.) Worst of all, perhaps, the music. Which, if the world made any sense, we'd only be just starting to hear on the radio and TV commercials and piped into in the aisles of our corporate convenience stores, but instead have already been subjected to for three weeks. So much Christmas music sucks. READ MORE

Rap Radar points us to this youtube clip of Beyonce performing "Crazy In Love" at a recent concert in Singapore. It's amazing to watch someone so on top of her game. Her relationship with the song-which is already a generation-defining standard-and her horns, and her drums, and her guitarist, and her back-up singers and dancers, and the lighting, and the wind-machine and the audience: she has every element on lock. READ MORE