JANUARY 8, 2010 -- The New Year got off on the right foot (and every other body part of mine) in Palm Springs. I found innovation and inspiration aimed toward better days on, of all places, a massage table (details later).

One thing I got to experience live was a tipsy Mariah Carey slurring through her spacey award acceptance speech at the Palm Springs International Film Festival. Stars were out en masse—including Morgan Freeman, Clink Eastwood, Sean Penn and Jeff Bridges. Cracks director Jason Reitman after getting his award: “This feels good—almost as good as how Mariah Carey feels right now.”

Hey, everybody: 2010 is gonna be filled with Mariah giddiness. Our spirits are high. Just check out the highlight reel from my First Week 2010. During a brisk trip during the desert’s cool season, I felt Mariah-esque while I got to:

• …tour the new hipster hotels in Palm Springs—including Sinatra-vibed Riviera, the speakeasy cool Colony Palms, wham-bam-glam Viceroy and the long, strong floors of the Renaissance, where end-of-corridor suites are sweet, but pedicab service to the elevator ought to be considered.
• …ride a horse named Suzy through Indian Canyons back country. It’s my fourth time ever on a steed, meaning my bucked-off percentage drops down to just 25 percent. I also figured out how to trot without needing an athletic cup.
• …meet Raven Longbow, an Apache Indian tribal park ranger. If his parents could have heard him address groups, Raven would have been named Seinfeld. “Native Indian medicines are a lot like laxatives. That’s why you can’t say we’re full of shhhhh…Thank you! I’ll be here ‘til Thursday!”

• …do a Taking of the Waters treatment at the utilitarian-named Spa Resort Casino. The treatment is a five-part process that involves a steam room, a personal tub of bubbling mineral water and a stint inside a super-sized eucalyptus vaporizer. If my sinuses were any clearer after Taking of the Waters, I might’ve sneezed out a lung.

The takeaway moment for the trip, however, was a visit to The Parker. This flirty boutique property was the set for Bravo reality show Welcome to the Parker . There’s a huge, painted sign in the lobby that reads: DRUGS. (In small letters above that, it reads: prescription.) They have a motto here: What happens in Vegas starts at The Parker.

Via the magic of 2010, I’m scheduled to receive back-to-back massages in The Parker’s classy, blue-and-white Palm Springs Yacht Club (PSYC) spa. A woman named Carmen pounds my 2009-weary muscles; Gina follows up with more caress for my flesh. The only negative: It was somehow the quickest two hours of my life.

One reason the massage magic was so memorable is the music playlist. A PSYC spa guest gets to choose the iPod-played music they want to retreat into while a complete stranger kneads their naked body.

There are traditional playlists: Beethoven’s Moonlight, Chopin Nocturnes and Chilled But Not Zen (complete with Enya’s “Triad.”) You could also pick from: Endless Sax, Young Divas (Norah Jones, Alicia Keys, Joss Stone) or You’ve Never Heard of These (I’d heard of the group The Chemical Brothers, but definitely not Cities of Foam or Boards of Canada).

During Carmen’s pounding, I listen to R&B Classique. My spine is loosened to the tune of Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay.” Luther Vandross, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye are also part of the soundtrack of my de-stressing session.

“Everybody loves the playlists because they never get to pick,” says PSYC front desk supervisor Chris-Ann Wheeler. “I remember a massage I got where the guy played whale sounds. That’s not what I want to hear.”

Wheeler says some people let the masseuse pick a list; others opt for no music at all. No one on the PSYC staff can think of another place they’ve worked that had musical options.

I ask Wheeler if there’s a psychology involved that helps you relax better if the music is down tempo.

“I don’t know,” she says, “but I think traditionally, that’s just the way it’s been.”

It did seem counter-intuitive to choose Move Your Toes—Funk, for the massage from Gina. She was slightly taken aback at the request; it’s the first time she’d had anybody pick that list.

But she seems to enjoy the songs just as much as I do. Innocently enough, during Kool And The Gang’s “Get Down On It,” Gina says: “Hmmm. I better be careful or I’m going to get down on it and start singing ‘Get Down On It.’”

Stop it. She didn’t mean it that way. But in a final plea to The Year 2010 (from all of us beaten down by 2009), you are officially invited to pick an upbeat playlist. Let’s all innovate. And elevate. We can all let out our inner Mariahs now and then. But let’s get down on it.