HOLIDAY MEMORIES

Lolita: Okay. Rick, have you seen my underwear? I mean, give me a holiday memory. RICK BERLIN (self): Weatogue, CT, Christmas Eve, hung the balls ’n’ lights. Tip-toed upstairs in my flannel jammies only to hear an explosion. My dad (DICK Kinscherf) collapsed into the tree, hammered after yet another night on the town. The tree hit the floor, shattering lights ’n’ balls. Dad yelling. I smile thinking of it now, maybe I was terrified way back then. *** LINDA VIENS (Angeline/ Sgt. Maxwell’s Peace Chorus): For years I have celebrated the winter solstice with Wayne and friends, building a big fire in the fire pit; burning away the “past” by casting something into the fire (cornmeal, glitter, pieces of paper with our words) and heralding the return of the sun, and with it, new beginnings, and new hopes and dreams. *** MR. CURT (Urban Caravan): One Xmas holiday week Ms. Donna and I won a post office trip to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl parade. Totally special and weather was perfect! We decorated a postal float, cruised Los Angeles and Hollywood, visited museums, ate splendid meals, danced/sat on Santa Monica beach watching the sun go down on New Year’s Eve before a huge post office banquet, and spent New Years Day baked and fed with friends on a veranda in the hills above L.A. Phew, a person could get spoiled! *** KEN FIELD (Revolutionary Snake Ensemble/Birdsongs of the Mesozoic): A few years ago I started playing with my friend, singer/songwriter Julie Dougherty, at her long-running annual free Christmas Eve concert/sing-along at the Hawthorne Hotel in Salem. It’s not the kind of music I generally play, but it’s great fun with some great musicians. At the end one year, a somewhat frail and elderly woman came up to the stage and said “You’ve made me so very happy tonight!” I was quite moved. *** AD FRANK (The Fast Easy Women/ Lifestyle): I spent Christmas Eve 2006 at the Glass Slipper. Lolita: Thank you, Ad, for not sharing all those dirty details. I would have been so embarrassed. *** KIER BYRNES (Three Day Threshold): I know it’s not Christmas until the Christmas tree gets knocked over (at least once). This year’s Christmas should be interesting as we are headed out for a European tour the very next day, so we will be celebrating pretty hard. *** STEVE “ACE” McARDLE (Skull Hammer): I remember playing the 2005 Dougman Christmas party at the Framingham space with the Worst and watching our friends jamming until they had sweated out every ounce of booze and energy, and nearly collapsed onstage. Whatta holiday! *** BRIAN KING (What Time Is It Mr. Fox?): The December memory that sticks out most in my head, is when I was six and my mother tried, quite unsuccessfully, to explain why ghosts, witches, and jack o’lanterns were not appropriate Christmas tree decorations. To this day there is always a broom-riding witch hanging from my parents’ tree for the holidays. *** CORIN ASHLEY (The Pills): I spent Christmas of 1984 in Soviet Russia visiting churches and monasteries and other cultural sites popular with 15 year old boys. I remember being in a church for a nighttime Christmas Eve service at a huge cathedral in Zagorsk. It was so packed that one of girls in our party passed out and remained standing. She never fell over—luckily someone noticed that she was out cold. Also on that trip, I made out with a college-aged girl from New Jersey, a major accomplishment that I can only attribute to underage drinking (and it’s noted effects on girls from New Jersey). Mind you, I’m not saying she was pretty, but she was 18. Lolita: What the hell are you saying?! I was 17—and damn fine!!!