Award Tour Vol. 29: The Yule Tide Thing

It’s December, everyone’s offering their Yule tide greetings (whatever – yule is) and you know what that this all means…Christmas Office Party. And not my own Office Christmas party - oh no I skipped out on that – no sense in risking my job security with a drunken outburst of obscenities when I can hurl these same curses at someone’s else without the fear of penalty or reprisal. (Not that I would do such a thing, but I’m just making a mental note… that if I wanted to – it was there for me… moving along.)

Office parties (and Happy Hours) are an interesting thing when sponsored by the place where you work – they are essentially events where you have a chance to party and socialize with people with whom you wouldn’t ordinarily party or socialize mostly because you don’t really like them…

Or know them…

Or both…

Anyway, most people spend all year carefully cultivating a professional image amongst their peers and co-workers. The prospect of destroying that with one alcohol soaked evening in which you feel compelled to say out loud what you really think is something I wouldn’t pass up… especially when it comes with no fear of penalty or reprisal for myself – but I digress.

So we, myself and the lady who invited me to her party (let’s call her Annette), have arrived. It’s a nice little reserved setting that seems fairly benign (and of course all of that is about to change). I was warned by Annette ahead of time, that she never brings anyone with her to office parties so my presence might make a stir, but I didn’t expect much - just a glance here or there.
Not the continuous open-ended stare, that one would expect from a curious crowd of onlookers gathered around an alien life-form emerging from the wreckage of an Unidentified Flying Object (yeah it’s a run-on sentence but you get the picture).

And before you ask, no, it wasn’t paranoia or narcissism – it’s only paranoia or narcissism for the first 8.4 seconds – after that you have a legitimate grievance against the people around you. And I felt like I was on display, like the Christmas Office Party was actually a Zoo and I was a Panda named “Ling Ling” on loan from China. I could feel people watching everything I did all night.

-Awww… look at him hang up the coats
-Oh looked, he went to the bar to get something to drink… did you see that?
-Hey look… he’s eating. Did you see that? He’s eating.

I was comforted by the fact that, at the stroke of 11:00 p.m. there would be an open bar, and who (or what I was) would no longer matter… not when there was free liquor to be had.

As I sat down Annette, went about the room, taking care of items here and there. Later, we got something from the buffet, and ate – after which she tells me, they have a caricature artist available for party goers – you know – the people who draw pictures of you exaggerating your prominent features grotesquely in the name of art and humor?

I am, a bit skeptical but I agree to go for a sitting, and watch as the artist draws Annette first. His skills aren’t too bad, he works quickly. The whole process takes maybe 5 minutes, (10 minutes if you count the walk over to the sitting area). Perhaps my skepticism was unwarranted. With Annette done, I now sit down in the chair and he goes to work.

He looks at me for about 10 seconds, and begins drawing, and sketching for a solid 5 minutes. Amazingly, he does all this drawing and sketching, while not looking at me – which leads me to what I think is a fairly obvious question, “How can this man be doing an accurate representation of me, when he isn’t looking at me?” Yes - I know - it's a caricature... not a portrait, I understand that. But damn. 5 minutes?

I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not. Is he trying to say my face is so simple any clown could draw it? Or was he on auto-pilot – so that it really didn’t matter who sat down, he was going to draw whatever he had in mind to draw – reality be damned.

I look at Annette’s facial expression to get some idea how it’s progressing. She nods and smiles approvingly as she watches over the artists’ shoulder. I’ll take that to mean things are going okay. I find this hard to believe, since he hasn’t actually looked at me to see what he should be drawing but fine – let’s just go with Annette on this one - it’s going okay.

As he’s drawing, another guy comes over and stays to watch. The artist stays focused on his canvas, ignoring the new spectator, as well as myself - the subject. He does a few pen strokes on the canvas (of what I don’t know) that produces 3 different reactions, from 3 people nearby.

Annette tilts her head sideways and looks confused, the next guy in line laughs, and a lady at a nearby table, looks at the canvas, looks at me (making a mental comparison), and shakes her head in disapproval as though the man had drawn me with a Rhinocerous horn instead of a nose (or something ridiculous along those lines) – I can see where this is going.

And it’s understandable too. Can’t draw what you can’t see; at least not accurately. Finally the artist unveils his masterpiece to me, and you know what the funny thing is…

… it was probably the most spot on, accurately done caricature you ever did want to see…






…of my best friend Shannon* who lives in New York who looks nothing like me and was not at the Office Party. Imagine that. He doesn’t look at me and then, in an almost unforseeable twist of events, what he draws doesn’t look like me – I wonder if we can deduce anything from that.

*Shannon isn’t his real name… remember the names are changed to protect the guilty.

As the night goes on, more and more mall employees trickle into the party (many of them security guards who are now just getting off work). They announce that the dance contest will begin soon – right about that time when they would have an open bar. I’m thinking this was by design. If it wasn’t, it should have been.

I go to the bar and get in line and order vodka, cranberry, and orange juice. I watch the bartender (let’s call him Rajinder Grinch) pour a spla of Vodka, some cranberry and orange juice into a cup which was already full of ice to begin with, and then watch as the he doesn’t even fill the cup up to the top.

You may have noticed what you THINK is a spelling error in the last stanza. Specifically in the phrase where I said, “I watch the barternder (let’s call him Rajinder Grinch) pour a spla of Vodka”. There is no error. I would have called it a splash of vodka – but that additional “sh” would be an exaggeration - what he poured was not a splash. It fell far short of that criteria.

After he finishes, he stands there looking at me hopefully… apparently looking for a tip. I return the hopeful gaze, waiting for him to pour liquor in my drink. Neither of the prospects are realized.

I go back to the table and nurse my drink (for what I don't know... I was clearly in no danger of becoming drunk or developing a buzz). The countdown to the dance contest slowly winds down. I've already eaten and it's crucial that I get some alcohol in my system so that I can enjoy this contest. This diluted drink is not going to do the trick. After musing for a while, I think to myself... "You know what, quitters never win. I'm going back to the bar". As I strolled over, Annette tagged along with me. She doesn’t drink but she wants an orange juice and cranberry (in retrospect she probably could have just taken my first drink).

I step up to the bar, and make both orders, and Rajinder makes a nice tall glass for Annette, and then (as though he was holding a grudge) proceeds to pour a “sp” (a “sp” being even less then a “spla”) of Vodka so that there is just enough Vodka in the cup to say it was an "alcoholic" drink. Then to complete his insult, Rajinder Grinch now only fills the cup up to the half-way mark. And then again, stands waiting... like he had made his point.

I have to say, if Raj was looking for a monetary tip, he was going about this completely the wrong way.

I ignore what must have been Raj's incredulous look as I walk away (I assume that's what he looked like because I had my back turned and I wasn't paying attention). I turn my attention to the pinnacle of the evening (maybe even of the entire week) which was the dance contest. Now that the alcohol was flowing (for everyone else at least) I’m expecting to see some creative stuff out there – and unlike my quest to secure a nice alcoholic beverage – I am not disappointed.

How is the dance contest conducted? Well it’s fairly simple. There are two judges (what their qualifications were remains a mystery) that walked on the outskirts of the dance floor judging your performance (based on what criteria remains a mystery) and you were out if they tapped you on the shoulder. Not a perfect system but you work with what you got. It can’t be any worse than the judges from the Winter Olympics.

After 2 or 3 songs, the dance floor starts to thin out, as the judges pick off dance contestants like assassins hiding in a nook, one at a time. Most left the floor gracefully – as time wore on (and liquor kicked in) some would not.

It was clear that some people were agitated with the judges apparently nebulous criteria. Some fairly decent dancers were plucked off the floor while others, who flailed away like Wilde Beast in the clutch of some Serengeti predator, were allowed to remain. Fair? Perhaps not. Entertaining? Wildly.

As the crowd thinned even more, I noticed a fairly large guy (who Annette told me worked security) still on the dance floor. He wasn’t doing very much to justify his stay on the floor – I wonder if the fact that he was huge had anything to do with the fact that he hadn’t been tapped on the shoulder?

When I say huge, I need to give you a frame of reference. Picture the earth. Now imagine it had on pants and a coat, and a red Santa hat. That’s what I saw. He wobbled every now and then (as he turned about his axis) and wasn’t so much dancing as he was preserving his small gravitational field. The only one able to get near him thus far was his lady, the Moon, who generated her own opposing gravitational field as they orbited one another (you see… there’s someone for everyone).

At one point, the man I refer to as the Earth descends to the floor and does a roll… I mean literally… he rolls on the floor. I’m not sure what dance that’s apart of – I’m not even sure how he was able to stop - but that fact that he was able to move that many metric tons on the floor without breaking anything – that's impressive. The judges tapped the Moon on the shoulder ending her dance contest but allowed the Earth to go on (in the sense that anyone allows the Earth to do anything). I guess the strategy was to allow the Earth to spin himself out and leave the floor voluntarily – as best I can tell, that's what happened - because I didn't see anyone try to tap him on the shoulder.

After a few songs, we’re down to the last 3 contestants. The first contestant of note was Kenny “Kickstep”. He was one of the whirling dervishes that I mentioned before who, by all rights, should have been excused from the dance floor long ago - if no other reason for the safety of those around him.

No one wanted to get too close because of the high probability of being struck with an inadvertent karate chop, knife hand, or scissor kick – I mean that was just Kenny doing his thing. He doesn’t mean any harm. If ever you were in a fight for your life on the dance floor, you’d want Kenny “Kickstep” in your corner...

His exploits on this dance floor will one day become a thing of legend. At one point, I even caught him doing the Flashdance. Oh - what? Act like you don’t remember; the dance where Jennifer Beals appeared to be rapidly running in place. Where's she "picking 'em up" and "putting 'em down" at a furious pace. That my friends is footwork. And Kenny had it (He’s a Maniac, Maniac I know).

Before long, it became clear to other observers that the other contestants weren’t really giving Kenny a wide Berth because he was just that talented, they were just avoiding one of several Marshall Art strikes (each one a certified killing move) that they would have undoubtedly recieved for venturing too close. For the safety of everyone in the room, the judges had to carefully make their way over to Kenny to tap him on the shoulder.

Now all that was left was a dude we’ll call Energizer, and Lady Fabulous. They had been the clear leaders the whole night, even dancing with each other when it served their purpose. But now it was just them – battling for supremacy and for the right to say to the other, “You Got Served”. (I think there was a gift certificate for the winner in there somewhere too… anyway)

As the dance contest had been going on for quite some time, they were both really out of moves – there wasn’t much they were doing now that we hadn’t already seen. But Energizer, just kept it going. Turn after turn, spin after spin – he didn’t have much left, but what he had – he gave. Lady Fabulous (who was much older than Energizer) tried to keep pace, but just couldn’t match his energy.

Scraping the bottom of the barrel of creativity for some sort of an edge, Lady Fabulous did a dance that will go down in the annals of Interpretive Dance as one of the most bizarre and puzzling offerings ever recorded in modern history. It can only be described as a genetic mixture of a “Weeping Willow” and “Snuff-a-luffacus” where she bent over at the waist and just let her arms dangle freely. It was like Capoeira (the African and Brazillian styled fighting form) - except without the fighting forms, techniques, and African rhytmes. Just arms dangling freely.

I thought maybe in a moment she's going to take it back to Mother Africa and this was just the calm before the storm. I thought she was about to start doing some “Coming to America” choreography (which I say would have won her the contest and I defy anyone to tell me that it wouldn't). But she does not. There is no choreography, no working of the back, no Mother Africa, no slaves being led to freedom. Just arms dangling and swaying side to side – like she had just been shot in the spine with a tranquilizer dart - all to the collective confusion of the crowd.

The judges let the contest go on for a few more minutes, and Lady Fabulous tried to pick up the pace, but the “Weeping Snuff-a-luffacus” has sealed her doom… and when it looked like she was about to go back to it, they finally step in and ended the contest like a referee ending a fight (literally, they hugged her and walked her backwards into a neutral corner like a fighter that had just been knocked out but wanted to continue the fight). No standing 8 count on the dance floor Lady Fabulous. You Got Served.

What a great evening. All in all I was mightily entertained. No, I didn’t see anyone do anything to get fired (or at least be written up) – and no I didn’t get my drink on (all for the best – I was driving anyway) and no Lady Fabulous didn’t win the dance contest (a fact which she b*tched about for the rest of the evening on a scale that would make Little Richard seem gracious) but it was Yule Tide in full throttle. And when you got the Yule Tide thing going… can things really go wrong?