THE DOWNFALL OF THE CHRISTMAS BRAG LETTER!

BY BILLY GEIST (THE TRUE TALENT OF THE FAMILY)

Christmas 2009--- Grandfather Blues--- You may know me as that jovial guy on TV on that Sunday morning CBS show. I am the guy with quirky human nature stories. I normally behave like my TV personality, nice, jovial, humorous. However, this holiday, I have the blues, and my temper is more like the Tasmanian devil. The cause of my out bursts and blues is based on mans dumb Darwain nature to reproduce. YOU SEE MY DAMN KIDS DIDN'T CALL. NOR DID THEY SEND A NICE GIFT FOR CHRISTMAS. NOTHING, NADA, ZILCH, BUBKISS. Now, like every man who is getting older and seeing the grim reaper on his porch step or waiting to take him down turning a round of golf with big gripping heart-attack; I am reconsidering why I created offspring, who ignore me. I felt that I deserved better. I was a great father, as even let my SON WILLIE GEIST, STEAL MY TOTAL ACT, MY SCHTICK, THAT I PERFECTED WITH YEARS OF HARD WORK. Yes, that is my son Willie Geist, the kid who works MSNBC and that infamous Cable Company. Yet, my Son can't even get me a special deal on cable. Yes, my Son is the Morning Joe's side kick with the sexy Polish woman and that boring guy Joe, who says Ronald Reagan, as if he has that weird Republican Tourette syndrome. With a stupid hope flicking in my Fatherly soul, I begin again checking all means of conversation in hope of something recorded on Voice Mail, cell-phone, home-phone, Email,or smoke signals. I see that life has kicked me in the balls, once again. Nothing at all from the Kids, Grand-kids. “THOSE UNGRATEFUL TURDS.” I screamed this at the top of my lungs. You see. I was humanly alone. It was just me and my pets in the house. (The damn wife went Christmas shopping for those traitors and Grandtraitors, who are cute now, but will leave me broke and alone like their useless parents.) Thankfully,the cats and dog come running up to see if I need help. Good Bless the beasts and curse the children. I started talking to my pets. This is good therapy, so if you think I am crazy, go F yourself. Looking at the pet's lovING and faith eyes I ask them the questions about life: “Why did I pay for my kids trinkets, clothes,cars and giant college fund? “ “ Why did I spend hours wasting time with their boring kid events?” “How rich would I have been if I hadn't bothered making carbon copies of myself?” All that math would depress me, so I don't want to break out the calculator, as the truth of numbers and logic would send me into a deeper funk then I am already in. The two cats and dog listen intently and jump on the couch to sit on my lap. They are the best. If only they could talk it would be the perfect antidote to my wasted life with kids, relatives, etc...

So it goes, I was depressed and sought comfort with man's best friend my dog and two cats, plus a libation called glug. Glug, a Swedish invention is really grain alcohol mixed with fruit to make it healthy. This concoction is much better than that other Swedish invention of the Saab car that actually won't start in the winter or worse yet ABBA, that horrid pretend rock band. Being a baby boomer, I found those Swedes actually killing Rock and Roll with a lot sugary nonsense.

Yes, you snot nose kids, I am a damn baby boomer that misses the 1960s. Glug is my antidote to the fake face-book crowd, who really need to expand their universe outside that flickering computer screen. Glug is the closest thing to LSD, that you obtain legally. It does make you feel happy, plus trippy. Every-time I drink this stuff; I swear I can go back in time, before I got married, when I wore sandals and dated a girl who called herself MoonBEAM Montana. AH! The good ole days before I had ungrateful children. I can almost see me and MoonBean traveling around the USA following The Grateful Dead, Santana, and Waldo's Gutbucket Syncopates. Beam me up Mr. Gulg. Let's engage the Time warp machine to go back in time.

I mix up the batch of glug in a festive holiday bowl, then get a fireplace match out and proceed to light the Glug on fire. Yes, this is the correct way to serve Glug, since you have to burn off the booze, or it would kill you. The stuff is like jet fuel. One tip is lock up the pets and have a fire extinguisher handy. Before, I start drinking the Glug, I gather up the Will and Testaments from the safe. I take out my CBS Sunday morning Pen and then engage in operation Hensley. She is the rich woman who left all her money to her dog. I then proceeded to change the Wills. I replaced my Kids names with the pets' names and leave everything else to a Pet adoption center near my house. The Glug is ready, and I pour a tiny glass to start off slow. This would have been a great glug trip, until I mad the big mistake of trying to find a Christmas card from my kids. Like a bad LSD trip, I would relive my past forgetting that I wasn't a privileged kid, like my kids. I was born a working class kid, the blue-collar tribe, not the white-collar tribe.

What a strange trip. Dear Mr. Glug, show me the happy times, not some horrid images of my past. What the hell, I slug down another glass of glug and toast my pets. I start having the visions already. There is my old man, the truck driver, ex-marine, drinker of Glug and anything that contained alcohol. Pop's made it out of the blue-collar tribe and ended up a minor manager at a major oil company, then they screwed him over on his pension and severance. I still feel like throwing up whenever, I see a commercial for big oil company. “WHAT A BUNCH OF FUCKING CROOKS!” “HERE'S TO THE OLD MAN!” I toast dear old dad, who loved his booze and pets. “GOD, I MISS YOU!” “AMERICA IS IN THE SHITTER NOW. “ BIG OIL,BIG BANKS ARE SUCKING THE LIFE OUT OF US, DAD.” After shouting these things the animals decide to move to the other side of the couch. I start opening up the junk mail and the few remaining Christmas cards, with my usual aplomb. With disgust, I throw the bills on one side and the sales pitches in the shred pile. What a crappy Christmas, layoffs, foreclosures and two wars seem to be designed by Scrooge or is it Dick Cheney.

Happiness and laughter are the key for the Christmas blues or is it booze! Oh wait, this Christmas card should be good for a few chuckles. You must know this type of Christmas card/letter.

The infamous brag letter. ( I am not sure in the Internet age, but isn't Twitter and Facebook just a short hand version of saying, “HEY LOOK AT ME! I AM IMPORTANT! LOOK HOW GREAT I AM!” YOU are only worth one hundred and forty characters, and I can unfriend you! This is just very short version of the brag letter)”

Even in my childhood in the 1960s, my family was afflicted by some smug over-educated idiot (Think of a Christmas letter from George Will or William F Buckley) sending us the brag letter.

As a Holiday greeting, the brag letter is as wanted as old stale leftover fruit cake and both are holiday traditions that are both indigestible. However oddly, my Father actually enjoyed the Brag letter as a means of entertainment. It became a big holiday joke to get the brag letter and everyone gathered around while the old man put on his show. We would all gather around for the comedy skit, as the old man (Dad) would hold the letter gingerly and then proceed to read the letter in a fake British haughty accent.

We didn't know these letter writers that well, sometimes a relative would attempt a brag letter, but most letters came from mere acquaintances, a long ago neighbor. Most all brag letters came from College graduates, who had left the neighborhood for better and brighter futures, but had to remind the working class scum how superior they are. One of the best letter writers of the brag letter was from the housewife handiwork of one Mrs. Tartlington. Whose husband happened to be some sort of prestigious college professor.

Like one of those damn fruit cakes or ugly multicolor Christmas sweaters you would get from a demented relative we received the Tartlington brag letter every Christmas. This letter was also sent to all our neighbors like an early version of a computer virus. ( Historical Footnote: In the 1960’s we had factories that made the same junk we get from China today. Ironically, China was an evil empire of Commies. Today, China is still Commies, but somehow we lost our jobs to China, so Tricky Dick Nixon could try to take our minds off his scandal called Watergate.)

Before the Tartlingtons entered our working class neighborhood we would only brag in person. However, it was the Tartlingtons’s had to show off their command of the English language in written form. The first brag letters were actually hand written and could go on for ten pages, unheard of with the Blue collar tribe.

To put it mildly the Tartlington family was our first encounter with higher educated college types we ever encountered, as the neighbors were mostly blue-collar till the Tartlington’s moved in. We didn’t understand these White collar traditions, since most our relatives were failures or if successful with money would avoid any other relatives, as they had fear of free loaders.

My old man would have never thought of sitting down and writing a letter to relatives, since if you actually work for a living, you just want to have a beer and watch the boob tube. This would be considered mediation or non-exercise Yoga for the Blue collar tribe, since it was done mainly in a recliner and had the yoga like arm exercises of raising and lowering a beer can until you reached a state of bliss. There is not much to a blue-collar letter that says, “I worked tons of overtime. I am tired and hungry, and my boss is getting rich.” The blue- collar tribe prefers the intimate contact of the late night drunken phone calls.

“This conversation normally is about gambling debts, or some sport team victory.”

Blue-collar meant you actually would work at jobs that would make you break a sweat at work, such as a factory worker, utility worker, truck driver.

( Sadly, in America today we have a Wax Model of an American Blue-Collar worker now in the Smithsonian, as most all of the Blue-Collar jobs are now in Communist China along with our Money and GDP.)

So my neighbors were totally devoid of how the College educated, successful people actually behaved. For us it was like one of those National Geographic Specials, watching how the Pygmies get thru their day. After witnessing, White Collar behavior we would have been much better off with the Pygmies. White Collar behavior in the neighborhood shocked many and it still makes me cringe when I remember the insanity of one college educated Cliff Tartlington.

Cliff Tartlington didn’t associates with many of neighbors, as his status as professor precluded him from interacting socially with his working class neighbors. What was even more strange is that he didn’t seem to want to associate with his wife, child or dog either.

He had these reptilian angry slits for eyes, that gave him a constant deranged look and kept the neighbors at bay. Cliff wore a sports coat with patches and those thick glasses, he wore dress shoes not work boots. The professor stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the factory workers, truck drivers, milkman and the auto mechanic that inhabited our block. Even though Cliff was dressed like that Ozzie guy on TV, he was not a cheerful, polite neighbor.

Image maybe everything, but actions speak louder.

To put it mildly the professor was nutty as a fruitbat, as his screaming at his wife and kid could be heard six houses down thru brick walls of our cape cod style houses. This was shocking and didn’t fit into the image of the 1960’s happy family that was shown on the current TV shows of the day.

They were not the TV version Ozzie and Harriet.

Cliff was not a placid, kind gentlemen with knowledge, but a pure wack job who shown a light on the myth of the higher educated being well-mannered and well-behaved. What Cliff did next scared the crap out of me and let me see the dark side of people no matter what their social status.

It was a sunny beautiful summer afternoon, when we heard one Professor Cliff Tartlington screaming from the Tartlington’s driveway. At first, we thought he was going after his kid for not putting his toys away, a normal occurrence. However, we all went outside and saw him drag the family dog down the driveway by its collar. Tartlington’s dog was a mild mannered and well behaved Collie, like Lassie.

The entire neighborhood stopped like statures and stared at the Professor, as he was flinging the dog down the driveway by the collar with incredible force and carrying a slender object in his hand. All the neighbors stopped talking and watering their lawns even the birds seem to fall silent that afternoon. Cliff the professor was screaming, “I am going to teach you lesson, for peeing on the rug”.

The poor collie was crouched in fear and submission and we all stood mutely on our driveways, not knowing what was going to happen next. Granny and our noisy CIA style neighbor Mrs. Hazelton whisper “what’s he got in his hand?”

“I hope he stops ”, my Mother whispered to Rose Stulz our next door neighbor.

All, the neighbors had gathered around to see what all the shouting was about. (There was no internet so people actually went outside) Now, with all the neighbors mouths were hung open in shock, the esteemed Professor kept on slinging the dog down the driveway like a big furry Frisbee.

Cliff didn’t even see the crowd he was attracting or maybe he didn’t care he had an audience.

“ Oh my god he has a bull whip!” I shouted to the crowd of adults.

“It can’t be?”, the adults always seem to doubt what a kid says, even if they are totally correct.

It was a whip!

Cliff unfurled the Bullwhip and I recognized this man was pure evil, this type of sadistic instrument was shown quite often in the 1960’s cowboy TV shows that featured a villain with a whip.

Unfurling the whip the poor dog should have just run away, but he was obedient to a fault.

The crazy professor with his 1950’s style buzz cut, thick horn rimmed black nerd glasses, blazer, tie and dress pants attire did not match the scene that followed.

Cliff started building up by cracking the whip and getting his rhythm and muscles set.

Mom spoke in a hushed tone with a cry in her voice, “I hope he is just scaring the dog with sound of whip?” This was however, was not the case.

Cliff starting whipping the collie on the flank with bullwhip. “Hmm, ummm,” whimpered the dog.

Everyone was mute and staring out like someone who was frozen with confusion that this couldn’t actually being occurring from a man of letters. The neighbors had gathered around and some could be heard mumbling: “Oh my god, why won’t he stop?”

After about 15 minutes of unrelenting animal abuse, Mrs. Tartlington was seen peering from the picture window like a timid frumpy door mouse of a lady, if door mouse wore house dresses. We all knew that she couldn’t stand up to Cliff, as Ruth Tartlington was a sweet kind woman to her Son and talked like a Kindergarten teacher to everyone, including adults which was sort of creepy.

She had never informed the neighbors at any of the normally female gatherings like Church socials or bake sales of her husband’s temper or insanity. On this bright and sunny day we saw the fear and craziness she must have endured under the hands of one esteemed professor Cliff Tartlington.

Ruth Tarlington finally came out of the house and begged her husband to stop whipping the dog. Cliff pushed aside his wife and his wife cringed and crunched her body over in fear. Thankfully, Cliff being an intellectual prone to sitting or at most standing at a podium was out of shape and stopped whipping the dog due to pure exhaustion, as sweat was pouring off his fancy beige dress pants and soaking thru his Navy Blazer.

None of the neighbors had stopped this, but the crowd was in such shock that our collective guilt should be tempered with the unbelievable actions of the professor. Like a herd of cows walking back to their barn, the neighbors all placidly all just walked into are houses shaking our heads and hoping this man would leave the neighborhood. Thankfully our prays were answered, as in two months time the Tartlington’s had moved to Madison Wisconsin, where Cliff was now an esteemed Professor in Romantic Literature.

You know the stuff Keats, Byron,,, Oh HEATHCLIFF your such a stud.

The neighbors were relieved to say the least when the Tartlington’s moved, but every year Mrs. Tartlington religiously sent all the old neighbors the Christmas brag letter, which was a marketing ploy that they were so successful and happy. However, in the back our minds we were concerned and worried that Cliff would go off the deep end with his bullwhip and volcanic like temper.

It is the fate of all brag letter’s to end badly and that has to occur when the family can no longer keep up the facade of perfection. Thus, the perpetual brag letter is stopped dead, as if the family had been their ego vaporized or surgical removed by space aliens who destroy their families ability to brag ever again. The last Tarlington brag letter came in December 1970 and was an incredibly ironic to describe the fitting end to a Professor who taught Romantic Literature.

Mrs. Tarlington started the letter with the normal brag letter format that her son was getting straight A’s and she had joined a genealogy club tracing their roots back to the Mayflower.

We were all about pass out from boredom, as the old man droned on in his haughty British accent. Then he stopped and laughed. “HOLY CRAP!” “Listen to this!”

The old man returned to his normal voice and began reading the letter in earnest.

“ It is been very hard on me lately since Cliff has decided to leave his family, FOR ONE OF HIS TWENTY YEAR OLD STUDENTS, A UNDERGRADUTATE NAMED CANDY. “OPS!” Every Christmas we waited, but the Tarlington brag letters where now extinct. Hopefully, Mrs. Tarlington found someone nicer then Cliff the professor and her son and collie are no longer suffering the shell shocked life’s they must have led.

It has been along time between brag letters, but for some unexplained reason I always end up some sort Internet cosmic joke mailing list that includes Russian Supermodels that need husbands, and weight lost magical potions, jobs that make you millions from the privacy of your home in your pajamas.

I was thinking that the brag letter was about as dead as the Dodo bird since letter writing is a lost art.

Magically, I still get some snail mail that always includes a brag letter even though I have never sent anyone a Christmas card since 1976.

Well, there it is the Christmas card brag letter. My family did get one last card from the Tarlington family, and it was from Cliff and his new wife: My old man laughed his ass off when he saw it, while my Mother shook her head in disgust. The old man kept the card and passed it down to me as a reminder of the ultimate Christmas Brag letter. I kept Cliff's Christmas and his new wife's Christmas card since it was unique. This is the Christmas card from many moon's ago.

HERE IT IS. Cliff's wife sure made a good looking elf. I iII

I

The card consists of a portrait of domestic bliss as the cheesy po