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For Those About to Jingle
The trio kicks off the holiday season in the most Christmas-spirit evoking place that they think of: 'The food court of the Mall of the Mainland'. Tonight is the beginning of a six week contract with the mall in which the guys will perform holiday music every Thursday until the holiday. George and Lee are warmly welcomed by their host, Kelly. She takes them over to the stage area which is surrounded by incomplete Christmas decorations. They are introduced to Reagan who has been hired to assemble all of the ornaments. He and his crew have their work cut out for themselves: The entire area looks like 1945 post-war Berlin with seasonal rubble and debris scattered everywhere but on the band's stage. Little elfin bodies lie face down in white woolen material intended to look like snow. Rows of knotted Christmas lights run like barbed-wire across the floor, in the shadow of a partially constructed giant Christmas tree. It could not look worse if the Grinch, Dickens’ Scrooge, and Mr. Potter from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ had aligned themselves together and blown up the mall’s display and hauled the largest fragments off to a tinsel making factory. What a mess. Matthew arrives. “Shouldn’t they be doing this late at night when the mall is closed?” Note: Many years ago Matthew and George worked for a plant company responsible for the upkeep of foliage and trees within a mall. All of their plant and tree maintenance was performed after hours in order to maintain the magical quality of the mall. As if the stores had mythically sprung up in the middle of the Garden of Eden – But this mall has a different philosophy…Oh well. George is engaged in a conversation with a nice elderly man named Calvin Davis. The two are discussing jazz greats Miles Davis (no relation) and John Coltrane. He learns that Mr. Davis plays guitar and tries persuade him to play a few songs with the group in the upcoming weeks. He politely declines for tonight, but maybe he'll be back next time. The three begin playing, and throughout the evening all of the classic holiday songs that you'd expect are covered. But this place is a ghost town. Not counting the elf mannequins, there may be a total of 14 people in this mall that are not employees. Granted it's a Thursday night, but where is everyone? In an effort to generate some business for the lonely mall kiosk vendors, Matthew begins doing 'commercials' for them between songs. "Titan Sunwear: From Cronus to Gaia, all of the Titan's get their eyewear from Titan Sunwear." and remember "The Surgeon General has determined that you should accessorize your Shaheen at least twice a year. When the time comes, you can rely on Sameer Accessories." etc. As the evening progresses, Reagan's workers continue to decorate as the band plays. The trio has different ideas of what the end product will be. They determine it will be either a replica of Santa’s workshop, a quaint alpine village with friendly ‘snow people’, or a DMV in Antarctica. (Check the blog in a few weeks for the answer). Matthew decides the time is right to 'unleash' the Christmas parody songs. He and George have a number of classic rock songs that they have 'converted' into Christmas tunes. One of the night's highlights is a song about Thanksgiving dinner, READY FOR LUNCH taken from the Bad Company tune READY FOR LOVE. After this, George invites two young boys up from the 'audience' to sing SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN on Matthew's mic. "Hey, these guys sing better than Matt!" Then Matthew and George sing O TANNENBUAM in honor of the half-finished 30 foot (well, make that 15 foot) Christmas tree. The night tapers off with a soulful instrumental jam in the key of G. George thinks of Calvin. The trio packs up, wades through the scattered poinsettias and elf parts headed for Galveston, while the decorating crew will work late into the wee hours of the morning. The band is hopeful that once the decorations are up, this mall will be more inclined to 'get their jingle on' and be flooded with cheerful holiday consumers. The trio will return in 2 weeks to see how it turns out.
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