Peace on Earth and Good Will Toward Men.

Any gift I buy for Xmas tends to be food. Why? Because you can't really go wrong with that. If you know the person you are purchasing for, you don't have to wrack your brains to find “the right gift.” A few packs of Klondike Bars may just be the ticket for someone. 

There's a local butcher nearby where I was shopping today. I needed a pile of Italian cut meats for a PigFest we're having tomorrow. There's no pig. We're the pigs. We're shoving fat, salt and grease into our mouths in celebration.

When I'm in a line, I tend to drift, let my mind go visit old movies, silly fantasies and what not. I keep that 20% of my brain online in order to hear the butcher's help call out, “Serving 22, Who's 22?” This time my peaceful un-mindfulness was disturbed by an altercation that turned out humorous.

“Whaddayamean you don't have pearl onions?” says the irate customer. She is about 50, overdressed for a butchery and has a slight smell of Anglo/Protestant/Barrington/Long Island to her. I could smell the haughtiness to her though, that stunck.

The teen clerk was trying to be as helpful as she could but couldn't get the fact that the butcher shop does not specialize in groceries to this angry women. The little teen girl was of slight build and probably didn't have too much experience in the way of dealing with idiot customers. “But you could go to Stop & Shop...it's not even a couple of miles from here in Seekonk.” The girl sheepishly says.

“But I'm HERE NOW.” the women says. She was putting her foot down!

We in the line are goofing on this women. Every now and then, we shoot knowing looks to one another about the imbeciles you meet in life.

Finally the owner comes out. I think all butchers are required to wear white aprons, to show you the blood they've been dealing with all day. “See? My meat is fresh!” It was bleeding on me just ten minutes ago!”

“Can I help you” says the butcher. This guy has a look of exasperation on his face. These past few and next day will be hell for him as everyone shows up demanding their Xmas crown roasts and tenderloins. He was schlepping cuts of meat as fast as he could these past few days, I'm sure.

We hear the repeated request for pearl onions, to which the butcher replies he stocks meat and meat products in his store, not veggies. He then vouches for the girl's idea of going to the Stop & Shop down the road. All of two miles.

“I want to talk to the manager!” the bitch threatens.

“I AM THE OWNER!” the butcher replies, losing his cool. “IF YOU WANT PEARL ONIONS, GO TO GODDAMN STOP & SHOP AND GET THEM THERE! THIS...IS A BUTCHER SHOP!”

The women stands there shocked, unable to move or respond.

“FORGET IT! GET OUT OF MY SHOP! IF I SEE YOU IN HERE AGAIN, I'M HAVING YOU ARRESTED!”'

She finally gets the message and quickly beats an escape out the door.

You've met these people and I hope you aren't one of them. Those who love to Lord their “The customer is always right” power over others. Well, for once, I got to see one of these little Napoleons get their faces rubbed in the dirt.

Anyways, I got my greasy mortadella, salami and other great stuff. On the way home, I started robbing it already, popping slices of salami in my mouth at the red light.

Slinky

 

Click the Toy and See

 

 

 

I've probably told of all of the Christmas stories I can here. So I'm going to try to remember every damn Christmas I can since I was born.

I'll start at five since I can't remember any before hand.

Five was great. I came down the stairs and the living room was piled high with gifts. I do have to remind myself I was a little under four feet tall then so the perspective made it seem like a huge haul.

I got the latest tech toy then available, Lite Brite. To me at the time, it was a Star Wars light saber. I can remember sitting in the dark, shoving those plastic pegs into the black pattern you snapped into place under the frame. Pretty colors! Simple things for simple minds!

I also got a Slinky. They still make them I have found out. Of course I tried to make it go down the stairs like you saw in the commercial but all I got was a clattering sound of spring steel crashing down the stairwell. I kept at it, thinking I'd get the hang of it eventually, till the noise pissed off everyone in the house and told me to stop. The old commercial for it used stop motion photography but when you're five, you believe all you see on TV. I had no clue as to what scam was being pulled over me. Even so, Slinky was still fun in other ways, like twisting it into odd shapes and making it bounce. In the late 60's, there were no real regulations to control the safety of toys. Slinky was made of spring steel that wasn't entirely polished. This became a problem as that Christmas night I had gotten the Slinky stuck in my hair from rolling it around on my head. Hey, this is how five year old boys experiment! Mom's scissors saved me.

In college, we were sitting around, between classes and we'd come up with ditty's from old songs, just to make ourselves giggle.

The old Slinky commercial lyrics went:

What walks down stairs, alone or in pairs

and makes a slinkity sound?

A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing!

Everyone knows it's Slinky.

We re-worked it.

What falls down the stairs

when pushed from his wheelchair

and makes a crotchety sound?

It wheezes!

It sneezes!

It's full of diseases!

Everyone knows it's Granpa!

This is what bored 20 something college kids, who are working towards various degrees, laugh at.

My sixth Christmas I can't remember too well. I do remember a friend coming down the street in his new hockey ice skates. There was no ice on the road so he was crunching the steel blades, dulling and probably bending them the whole way to my house to show me. I was standing by the picture window, hearing him gloat over this gift when his Dad showed up, bitching that he “spent GOOD money on those” and not to have him ruin them by walking on concrete and tar with them.

7,8.9,10,11 go by with a blur.

Twelve and Christmas eve had my family in East Providence's Palm Restaurant. The motif was palm trees and a sort of Magaritaville-esque set up. I thought it odd my Dad wanted to eat there as it was a very tacky place to be at on Christmas Eve. Oh well. We came home and I saw, what I thought and out of fantasy, was a Bethlehem Star in the East. As I awaited for Mom to unlock the kitchen door, I looked at it and wondered. In all rights, it was probably just the star Sirius rising. But when your a kid and it's Christmas, you are allowed to let your mind wander.

13-14...another blur.

At fifth-teen I was well past the age of receiving toys. Though a tiny part of me wanted to have something fun. You give up the last remnants of your childhood hard. But at 15 I discovered something else, adult gifts were killer too.

I had received a real Merino wool sweater. Not only that, it was a cool color and pattern. I understood at once what this meant: “I didn't have to pay for it!” Grown-up lesson #234/b4...clothing, gift certificates and plain CASH was a great gift, even though the era of getting toys was over.

I can remember giving my brother the two album set of Joe's Garage by Zappa for Xmas that year. It blew me out of my money too. Just released two album sets were damned expensive back then. No matter, he played along with it for two months straight I came to find out.

16,17...blur

At eighteen I told you already somewhere in the past on this blog. It was the Night Jimmy Keough Terrorized Our Neighborhood with his 1972, 500cc clunker station wagon with no exhaust.

Nineteen was damned interesting, for it's adult nature. I spent that day in the lobby of Butler Hospital admitting my Mom due to a vicious, spiraling attack of severe depression. What was weird, I wasn't the only one there admitting family members that day. This was Destroyed Christmas #1 I experienced. I wasn't really thrown for a loop, I saw it coming. It was the timing that was odd. Seeing psychiatrist's stop each other in those halls to wish one another a “Merry Christmas” was bizarre to me though. But this is their garage, they're used to it

20-23 was a blur except for discovering that Asians couldn't give a damn for Christmas and they keep their bars open that night. My friend M and I discovered this and duly got looped on these occasions. I also found out what the Jews do on that day too, the very same thing, as the Christian world comes to a complete HALT on Christmas. Where else to go but to pagan Chinese restaurants?

24 to..damn 31..another blur...no particular memories. Though somewhere in there I gave Kathy a good container of raw shrimp, along with other gifts for her. She held up the plastic container of shrimp, then at me, kinda funny, when I said, “But you LOVE shrimp...you adore it! You talk about it all the time!” Sheesh...some girls can't appreciate it when a guy pays attention to the little details of their lives, and purchase the appropriate gift! Ha! Or the time I gave another Kathy a few bags of Doritos, along with the other gifts. “Dammit Ron! I'm on a diet...you KNOW I can't help but eat the whole BAG!”

Once again: “But you LOVE Doritos....etc.”

At thirty-two for some reason I can remember blaring Roger Waters “In the Flesh” CD my brother had given me. It was also that day when I had concocted a Robert Sauce for the tenderloin I was cooking. Robert Sauce was demi-glace, Dijon mustard, scallions, white wine. Simmer it down to near nothing and it's velvety stuff. My brother wanted to use a straw to suck it up with. He asked, “Can I get some more GRAVY?” I thought: “God...gravy he calls it...”

After that, the Christmas's became pretty pedestrian, except for a few notable differences in the people that have come and gone from my life. Newer ones come, older ones go and some remain. I like the lights, the competition some of my neighbor's have trying to outdo one another. The boxes of Chocolate Cherries with liquid centers that are pretty disgusting in their own sweetness. Ditto for ribbon candy. I like some of the Christmas music as long as I'm not saturated with it. Instead of C7 Christmas light bulbs, we have gallium-arsenide LED ones that are computer controlled. That and a simple game of Monopoly costs over $30 now.

So the years tick off and the Christmas's tick off as well. The people I've known are another year older, grayer and perhaps more fine lines in their faces. At this age, a Christmas Eve means we pull out the “good” stuff and sit, drink and stuff our faces with food. That ain't bad.

But, Christmas as a five year old, when you come down the stairs and see the proof that Santa WAS there, was great. Even if the Slinky was a bit of a BS toy, everything else was perfect.



Goddamn Kids!

Not too long ago I was talking with M.V. about local restaurants. We were purposely making ourselves hungry thinking of the various foods we could eat. It was self temptation, much like looking at porn. One place came up was the East Side Checker Club that was run by Ray Mathieu. 

 

Ray Mathieu finally retired from it at 95 years of age. He started it when he was 30. That means the Checker Club was long in operation even before I was born.   MV said he had gotten tired of the place, as it still looked the same as it did in 1969 and still had the same menu. “Not only that, I feel as if I'm walking into the Q-Tip Club when I used to go there.” he said.

“Q-Tip Club?” I thought. Then I got it. The restaurant was a favorite for retirees for years. The elderly just love predictability. Then I took a slight insult at that nickname...I have had a head of blinding white hair since I was 35. In a sense, I've been a member of the Q-Tip Club since I was that age.

MV didn't seem to notice the off handed remark. Once again I was reminded of how this mop on my head makes me look much older.

As a kid my family would go to the Checker Club. I hated it. The food was far too spiced for a five year old kid and my parents would always order for me the same damned dish, half a chicken with pasta. Today, I can shove Tabasco covered popcorn into my mouth but that's from eating and experiencing highly seasoned foods for years. As a little kid, adult seasoned food was like a grenade going off in my mouth. Too much!

I'd sit there and pick and slowly eat that chicken, trying to find ways to not eat it. No such luck. Parents are there to cajole you into eating it all. I did find one way of getting out of it. I'd deftly sneak the half eaten chicken into a gap between the booth and the wall. I managed this several times when we went out on Fridays.

Ray Mathieu usually stood at the entrance to greet any guest that arrived. One time, he directed my family to an open table on the other side of the restaurant claiming the “booths were full.”

After being seated, my Dad, peering to the other side, noticed some booths were open and wondered aloud why we were seated here.

As usual, I had to go to the men's room, if just to move my legs. I hated sitting still for any length of time then. I passed Ray who was standing guard at the entrance and I guess I reminded him. He said to another employee, in not a quiet enough voice: “That's him. He's the one that's been hiding the food.”

As I was in the men's room, I was sort of shocked he had nailed the right person who was putting half eaten chicken into the booth's gap. I went back to our table after acting as if I never heard a word. I then figured out why we were put in the open area. There's no way in hell I could sneak food anywhere there.

I gave myself a private laugh as we rode home after. I tried to imagine Ray, searching high and low for that awful, rotting chicken stink that must've permeating his restaurant. You really had to look hard because those gaps in the booth were just about two to three inches wide and very dark. I guess Ray decided to follow his nose on that one. Whew!

I'll admit to this one too. I once managed to lock the private stalls in the men's room. I found myself alone in them and it was the perfect set up. I'd go into one and act as if I was using it and and slide the dead bolt lock on the door. I then slithered out underneath the foot wide gap at the bottom of the partition, but I never did release the dead bolt lock. I did the same for the next stall. I was probably eight when I did that one.

I chuckled to myself when I imagined customers who were ready to burst and couldn't get the stall open. After about ten minutes, Ray was being summoned to the men's rooms. I overheard one customer say, “Ray, I can't figure it out. BOTH doors are locked!” Ray goes in and I suppose he tries to slide under but no go. I then see him get the dishwasher, a smallish teen to do the job.

As my family went to the coatroom to get our coats, I swear Ray shot me a look for half a second.

 

**

Checker Club was closed down on Ray's retirement but then was bought out and rehabbed. I plan on going there tonight. A warning to the new owner. I will hide food and lock your men's room up if I don't think the food is of high quality.

 

 

Poor Ray. He never did me any harm in  his life and I manage to torment him.

Disco Sucks!

 

 

Soul Train Logo

...or as my brother used to call it, “Soul Bus.”

I can pinpoint the month when all of radio sucked. That was February 1978. Every station in this area had switched over to Disco. The only other FM stations available were classical or some odd parallel broadcast of AM talk radio. 94HJY hadn't been born yet and WAAF out of Worcester barely came in. It was a dark time.

We had on the latest stereo system, a Radio Shack Realistic where you spun the dial and the needle would go up and down the radio spectrum. There was channel surfing even then. I can remember, sitting in disgust trying to find something. I'd eventually settle for the least offensive disco song and try, try to groove out to that.

“Groove out to that...” God, I still speak in 70's lingo sometimes. I still even say, “Can you dig it?”

 

 

Soul music was born in Motown, which was enjoying a resurgence in the early to mid 70's after all the doo-wop bands had run their course in the 60's. WPRO which has always played Top 40 Chick music, played soul constantly. I know, it was of the few stations that came on my pocket radio. I'd get my balls busted for listening to it if out in the street with my friends. I'd then demand to find a station that came in that had music, besides f'ing 55 WGNG.

The TV show Soul Train used to come on after the cartoon line up on Saturday mornings and I'd roll my eyes. Soul Train signaled the dearth of decent TV programming for the rest of the day. But I'd watch it anyway, or at least as background noise. Once in a great while, I'd stop and pay attention to a song I actually enjoyed. What I didn't know then was that this was setting up the Disco invasion once whites started to steal it. (An aside: I have nothing but disdain for Deney Terrio, the MC for Solid Gold. I used to shout at the TV, along with my brother, about what a greasy spaccone he was. God, I can remember his horrid 70's disco haircut, the widow's peak feathered job. “Shut up! You Greaser! Get off the TV!)

So, out of Soul comes Disco...thanks LA recording industry...anything for a buck, right?

Now looking back on it, with some maturity (I hope) many of those songs in Soul genre weren't bad at all. Yes, like all new movements in music, there's a ton of schlock and a few gems, precious few gems. Too bad Soul Train and soul in general was morphed into half a decade of sickening Disco dance music. I was no major lover of New Wave when it came in, but it's greatest feat was to push Disco off the radar screen.

I actually like this song now...and I did then too, even with that Disco beat sneaking in. Like I said, some song were OK by me.

 

Rock Your Baby! Click and Groove!

And if you think I hated Disco..watch this: Disco Demolition Night

 

 

 

 Watch Comiskey Park Lose it.