Christmas Carols & Cracker Barrels

A FEW NIGHTS AGO, on the road near Gainesville, Texas, we were road-weary and ready to eat. It was dark and cool. If you’re hungry on a winter night and you see a Cracker Barrel sign, somehow it just seems right. The place was nearly empty, but a big fire was going, and a game board of giant checkers was set up and ready for any pair wanting to rock and play a game.

My Amazing-Missus was browsing the gift shop, I was seated by Rachel, with four stars on her apron, to have a cup of coffee. Playing over the sound system was a “Christmas” song I had never heard before. It was like a caricature of song, sort of a mash-up between bluegrass and country/western called, “Call Collect on Christmas.”

With a little research I found it was recorded by a guy named Del McCoury, about a drifter who was recalling, following the passing of his dear mother, that her last request was that he call her collect on Christmas. I bet his mother would have loved Cracker Barrel.

Christmas music is one of those things people either love or not. I know some who start listening to Christmas tunes as soon as Hobby Lobby puts up their yuletide decorations on July 5 every year. On a scale of Love It on the left, to Hate It on the right, I (as I do politically) tend to be somewhere near the middle but leaning left.

One of the things I love is discovering new tunes and arrangments. Don’t get me wrong, I love the classic carols and songs like Dean Martin’s version of “Silver Bells” and “Mele Kalikimaka” by Bing Crosby.

Remember The Band, that band from the 60s? Surely you know their big hit, “The Weight”? Well, a guy from The Band wrote and they recorded a song called “Christmas Must Be Tonight”. It’s a wonderful song.

A while back, a fresh young group called Bahamas covered the song and it is one of my annual favorites. Their arrangement is delightful on so many levels. Here is a link to the song on YouTube. Enjoy, and by all means put on your best set of headphones to savor every slide guitar chord, every wonderful lyric and each and every “shoop, shoop woow” of the backup singers.

Bahamas. Christmas must be tonight

Christmas music is so memorable, in my opinion, because these tunes have the most beautiful melodies ever written. "The Wexford Carol" is a example of what I mean. Fortunately, for us all there is an arrangement of this carol recorded by Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss. Check it out.

Yo-Yo Ma, Alison Krauss. The Wexford Carol

Oh, and if you would like to give a listen to Del sing his broken hearted little ditty about his poor lonesome momma, it’s on YouTube too (and playing at a Cracker Barrel near you). I recommend you listen to it while enjoying a hot cup of coffee and a biscuit slathered with apple butter.

Del McCourt. Call Collect on Christmas

I have to include one more. This is Nataly Dawn, one of my favorites. She is so multi-talented. I recommend you pair this with gingerbread cookie and a mug of mulled-wine.

Snow. Nataly Dawn

I would love to hear from you. What are your favorite Christmas tunes and arrangements?

Erlebnisgesellschaft

ON MY BUSINESS CARD, my title is listed as “Chief of Creative Strategies and Corporate Culture”. Yes, it is meant to be taken with a grain or two of salt and an eye roll, but it sounds much more noble than “Head Huckster in an Industry With Questionable Moral Redeeming Value”.

In ninth grade English class, we were given an assignment: write a paper on what you would like to be when you grow up. I remember some of my classmates struggling with the assignment. When you’re 14 or so, and filled with bright hope and other stuff, it can be hard to narrow the possibilities for a life calling down to one job. 

For me it was easy. At that moment in time I had vocational clarity. I was to be a radio disk jockey. Even then I was certain I could stack the order of current hits to create a playlist that would not only wow and entertain but prove to be the soundtrack for young lovers everywhere.

Of course, my commitment to being a great DJ would wax and wane, and my vocational vision would wander over the next few years, but never, ever would I have written an essay about being the marketing guy for a bank. But that all changed with my discovery of erlebnisgesellschaft.

In the early 90s, a German sociologist named Gerhard Schulze wrote a book called "Erlebnisgesellschaft", or "The Experience Society". Then in 1999, a couple of guys named Pine and Gilmore wrote an article explaining what they called “The Experience Economy”. They used the example of a birthday party and the requisite birthday cake to explain the various economies and how the experience economy fits. It goes something like this:

Agaraian economy: To make the cake, the mom gathers the necessary commodities and makes the cake from scratch.

Goods-Based economy: Life gets a little easier. Now some lady named Betty Crocker has put a bunch of the key ingredients in a box called a cake mix.

Service economy: Now you don’t even have to turn on an oven. You go to Wal Mart, point at a cake in a glass case, they squirt the kid’s name on it, and voilà! you have yourself a party. (Well, you still have to get the pointy hats, napkins, punch, balloons, magician, corn dogs, and clean the house when it’s all over.)

And last, but not least, the Experience Economy: Now you just outsource the whole thing to Chuck E. Cheese.

Erlebnisgesellschaft, in theory, changed my perspective on marketing a bank—a part of an industry that has managed to turn even “service” into a commodity. Somehow it made the vocation seem more like a calling than a job. I thought we had made some strides toward this idea, until I visited the pinnacle of the Experience Economy model: The American Girl Doll Store.

Our oldest Grand-Girl will be eight soon. (The recommended age for the AGD experience.) I had heard they stage quite the experience and I strive to earn the right to continue to drink from my “#1 Pops” coffee mug. So, let’s do this right.

A Google search provided these tips: 1.) Make your bistro reservations before you arrive. 2.) Stay the night before your visit in a partner hotel. 3.) Arrive early and make your reservation at the spa first thing. Check, check & check!

As we arrived at the “partner hotel”, the young lady at the desk looked right past me to Karlee, who was holding her American Girl doll. “This must be yours!” she says enthusiastically, as she hands Karlee a large AGD bag.

As soon as we walked into our room, we noticed cookies and milk awaiting her arrival. She dug in to her bag to find a tiny little bed, satin sheets, a pillow, a robe and slippers all for her doll and hers to keep. There was also a $25 AGD gift card in the bag, to prime the pump so to speak.

The next morning we were at the AGD queendom as they doors opened. Karlee made an appointment at the spa to have her doll’s ears pierced, then we were off to Brunch at the AGD Bistro and shopping. Several hours and dollars later, we started for home. As I looked in the rearview mirror to find Karlee and her doll sound asleep, I thought, “Erlebnisgesellschaft indeed!”

Tea time at the Bistro

Selecting a new pair of shoes takes a committee

Done

108

You know, with the Cubs winning their first world series in 108 years, hope sort of springs eternal, don’t you think?

Who knows, the sentiment of this victory story might work its way into pop culture, and maybe even back in to our American psyche because of their win, and even if it doesn’t, I might fall back on it from time to time.

Like maybe if I say: I’m hoping that after forty years now my hairline might un-recede. To which some cynic will say, “It’ll never happen.” And I’ll reply: That’s what they said about the Cubbies winning a World Series too, and a hundred and eight years later…

Or maybe I’ll long for Abraham Lincoln to come back from the dead and run for president. Or maybe Diana Krall will call and tell me she’s in town for a concert and her drummer is sick and she needs a stand-in. Or maybe the Surgeon General and the New England Journal of Medicine will report that ice cream lowers cholesterol and increases stamina.

Ridiculous, you say? Tell that to the Cubs fans that have been earnestly waiting since 1908.

If I come off here sounding like the eternal, unrealistic optimist, don’t be fooled. When it comes to wishful thinking, I’m ambivalent at best.

Although I have been and will always be a Cardinals fan, I am so grateful for the storyline of the “lovable losers” from Wrigleyvile and their World Series victory after all these years. It was so nice to have something to smile about while living in the wasteland that politics is wreaking on us all these days.

Speaking of politics and hope, or the lack of it, I’ll at least be optimistic enough, maybe not Cubs fan optimistic, but enough to believe that as a somewhat hapless lot, we will survive our next POTUS and the cast of characters that will roam the capital building the next four years, and that maybe, just maybe, in my lifetime I will be fortunate enough to see a true statesman or stateswoman of humility, brilliance and vision rise up to serve.

Rum Pa Pum Pum

I thought I wanted to be an athlete. Baseball would have been my first choice. I loved listening to the St. Louis Cardinals on the radio and going to watch their farm team, the Tulsa Oilers. Alas, it was not to be. I was tall enough but lacked any kind of mass, muscle or other. Maybe basketball could be my game!? Sorry, no. Turns out the Jenks elementary team only had ten uniforms and there were at least eleven guys with more talent or parents who could pressure the coach.

Oh but fifth grade brings hope for everyone. That’s the year you can join the band. I have no doubt that right now there are excited, aspiring, budding musicians in schools all across the land choosing their instrument. For some, choosing the right instrument is a dilemma. Not for me. I knew that I would be a drummer. If you can have a calling at ten years old, I had one.

By junior high, there’s a separation of sorts. Tough guys play football, the rest are in the band. But drummers get a bit of a pass (or at least that’s the way I worked it out in my own mind). I learned from my grade school band director that “drummers are a necessary evil”. He would have had a band full of clarinet and trumpet players if he could have figured out how to march in a parade without a drum cadence.

The great thing about this healthy tension was that it gave us drummers a bit of a bad boy vibe (or at least that’s the way I worked it out in my own mind). Early in my drumming life, The Beatles brought their brand of rock and roll to America and my fate was sealed. I would soon be the next Ringo Starr. Now all I needed was a set of Ludwig drums (like Ringo’s) and a couple of guitar players and a bass player.

I’ll never forget the day, my dad picked me up from school and took me home to find that first set of drums. I’m sure there were many times my parents thought, “What have we done?” I practiced and practiced and practiced some more. Finally, I found those band mates and before long we were playing at school dances and “Teen Towns”, and life was good.

Here is a picture of the stage band at Jenks High School in 1968 or so. That’s me at my drum set I so dearly loved.

Jenks High School Stage Band. 1968.

In retrospect, I am glad I didn’t have the wherewithal to play sports. No doubt it would have been fun. To be able to say that I played football for the mighty Jenks Trojans, undoubtedly the most dominating high school football tradition in the state, as I sat around recovering from knee replacement surgery.

But, I wouldn’t trade a state football championship for the experiences that being a percussionist have afforded—the opportunities, friendships and world travel all possible because of music. I wish I could look up some of those old band mates, directors, and teachers to reminisce a bit.

Fast forward to the present. Both of our sons are drummers, and so for many years we have had a drum set in our house, even though I sold my drums years ago. Just recently our youngest son married a musician and moved out and took his drums with him. I have missed him and his drums.

I had a thought: maybe I’ll put a little kit together, find some drums on eBay or Craigslist, keep my eye out for some used cymbals. So in a casual search of the double-u, double-u, double-u, I learned that Ludwig, just this year, came out with a brand new drum set that is a “vintage” replica of my first drum set, right down to an exact color match and lug design.

Then as luck would have it, I found a demo set of these amazing drums at a drum shop in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Now these beauties are set up in our home and I am having a great time living in the past from time to time.

If there are any old guitar players out there who know how to play Wipe Out and House Of The Rising Sun and Louie, Louie, give me a call. Maybe we’ll be ready to play a few proms next spring.