“Trailer for sale or rent…”Fingers snaps and then Roger Miller is singing for what must be the hundredth time in the bookstore bar, as I unlock the front door and let in the crowd who’ve been gathering outside on the sidewalk. It’s two days before Christmas and people are here to shop.
I came into work with the intention of playing NRBQ’s Christmas Wish, one of the few Christmas records I’ll make an exception for, but I can’t find the disc and can’t get my Bluetooth to work. Maybe it’s for the best. I’m not sure when it happened that I went from loving Christmas music to wanting to run screaming from any establishment that plays it. So I grabbed the first CD I could find and it was King Of The Road: Roger Miller’s Greatest Hits. It’s good for any occasion.
The disc went around several times before I had a chance to change it. People were heaping up books and puzzles and onesies and stuffed animals; socks and more books: Will Hermes’ Lou Reed, King of New York, Jen Beagin’s Big Swiss set in Hudson. Diamond Street. Occasionally someone ordered a beer. I saw friends for a second, their faces like those character actors you love and spot in a party scene in a movie. The day was a blur of wrapping paper and credit cards and “can I tap?” and “Have you got a copy of this book…”
“Do you know anywhere in town I can buy a beeswax candle?” said one shopper.
“Is there anywhere in this town you can’t buy a beeswax candle?” said another.
“Is that place still open that sold the teeth?” someone asked, and I kind of knew which place they were talking about.
“I know the answer to this question is ‘no’ but can you sell me a can of beer to go?”
I kept hoping I’d get to the NRBQ Christmas album but I guess it wasn’t meant to be, and I thought maybe that was a little extra service we were providing to people, offering a respite from the added pressure of holiday music.
But oh how I once loved Christmas music, back when it was special. In the mid-eighties, before I started harmony trio the Shams with Sue Garner and Amanda Uprichard, I joined them for Christmas caroling in the East Village of Manhattan. We’d rope in another friend to make it a gang and really go to town with song selection, wardrobe choices and total energy for spreading the cheer, all just in the holiday spirit, absolutely no thought of financial compensation.
Of course we were all broke. We lived in cockroach-ridden tenement buildings with bathtubs in the kitchens, got by on temp work, shopped in thrift stores and ate in the cheap Polish and Ukrainian restaurants that were pretty much the only choice in the neighborhood at the time. If you wanted to go lavish, maybe Indian food on East Sixth Street.
Our song selection welled up from childhood nostalgia (Holly Jolly Christmas from the TV special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer) and Rudolph himself via the Bing Crosby version, recent obsessions with country music (Children Go Where I Send Thee learned off of Emmylou Harris’ Light Of The Stable album and To Heck With Old Santa Claus, off a Loretta Lynn cassette likely from Sue’s collection) and old R&B courtesy the Hound’s radio show on WFMU (Christmas In Jail).
Our rehearsals were gay affairs—no arrangement idea too complex or ludicrous, we’d laugh ourselves silly trying to keep in tune and in time to one acoustic guitar that was in tune with…I’m not even sure what. I barely remember ever tuning a guitar back then. My brother Michael had the pitchpipe in his apartment around the corner, and batteries were expensive!
To dress for caroling, we’d choose a theme, either red and green or silver and gold. Layering was necessary as we spent a lot of the time outdoors, walking from apartment building to apartment building around the neighborhood, Avenue B to Avenue A to First and Second. The few times we ventured above Fourteenth Street felt like Dorothy entering Oz — alien, fancy; like anything might happen. As trashed and dangerous as the city was below Union Square, it felt like home, where we knew what we were dealing with.
Christmas 1988 - maybe the last caroling Christmas as I’d just had a baby and things needed to get more serious for me with music—we were invited by Kim and Yura, a couple who owned the Stewart House restaurant and hotel in Athens, New York, to come and sing at their holiday party. Amanda was dating Richard Hell and he went up there to get away from the city and write sometimes. Traveling north from Manhattan felt like going to another very sparsely-populated country. I remember the moonlight on the Hudson River right outside the door of Stewart House; my daughter in a baby seat as Sue, Amanda and our friend English Susie stood in a row in our red and green finery, serenading the revelers. The air up north felt colder than city air, but the atmosphere in the cozy bar was like going back in time: warmer and simpler. An odd coincidence that I’ve spent a dozen years living just down the road from Stewart House. They renovated the building but it still looks right out of a frontier town—some places repel progress.
Yesterday I threw myself into working retail, two days before Christmas. I’ve been away a lot and haven’t been at the store much. I feel lucky I haven’t needed the hours. Maybe I’d offered to work this shift for the same reason we used to do the caroling– there’s something about putting yourself right there in the maelstrom, like a figure in a snowglobe, letting the season swirl around. It’s about as close to the holidays as I’ll get this year. Every other day is fine to be purposeful. But thank god for pointless merriment. It’s got to be good for the soul.
I unearthed a cassette, this is from 1985 - pardon the hum. And hope you find a little merriment yourself (but no pressure!) Thanks so much for reading.
Late (as always) to the party! Thanks for this Christmas gift 🎁 💚🎄
Nice. Very nice. Merry Christmas!