O Christmas Tree

As a child, one of the best times of the year was when the Christmas tree went up, as it was an undeniable sign of the impending mass distribution of free loot by some crazy old man who lived at the North Pole and ran one heck of a non-profit organization.

As an adult, however, I’ve never really felt the same way about Christmas trees. I have absolutely nothing against them, mind you, it’s just that they're no longer a requirement for my continued enjoyment of the holidays. (At this stage of my life, my enjoyment requirements are mostly fudge and peppermint based.)

Not surprisingly, never once in my life have I erected a full-sized Christmas tree in my home. It’s just always seemed a little silly to me that we bring a piece of nature (or perhaps a prefabricated piece of nature) into the warm, cozy domiciles that we’ve built for the express purpose of avoiding nature. I mean, by that logic, why stop with just a tree? Why not import enough nature so things get interesting? (“Good morning Christmas tree! Good morning moss-ridden log! Good morning flesh-shredding patch of thorny brambles! Good morning Mr. Bear. Would you like some coffee? Wait – Mr. Bear?”)

Look, I’ll freely admit there’s also a Bah-Humbug factor in play here, but my point still stands.

However, I’m not entirely hopeless, and in the words of one Mr. Red Green: “I’m a man, but I can change, if I have to…I guess.” And so, in an attempt to alleviate both the implicit and explicit social pressures I’ve been feeling over my lack of Christmas decorations, I now have a prefabricated piece of nature (I.E. an uglificial tree) proudly standing in my living room.

Please, hold your applause until the end.

Now, keep in mind that this was an emotionally draining process. Not only did I have to reverse years of my own deeply-rooted personal tradition – which in itself can sap the will out of any man –  but I also had to figure out how to assemble it without getting one or both eyes poked out by rogue branches. Needless to say, by the time I was finished I barely had the energy to keep from collapsing onto the floor and staying there until mid-January.

That brings me to my next point: After I’d expended nearly every ounce of my life force erecting the tree, it then dawned on me that I still had to trim it.

I couldn’t have expressed it better myself.

Currently, I have a total of five ornaments. They are:

• A hand-crafted ninja.
• Darth Vader wearing a Santa hat.
• A skillet containing bacon and eggs.
• A minion wearing a Santa hat.
• A stuffed Chewbacca that roars in a hilarious manner upon being squeezed. (It actually isn’t an ornament at all, and is being pressed into service only because it amuses me so.)

Now, while we can all admit that this is by far the most fantastic core grouping of ornaments a person could ever ask for, it’s obvious they can’t decorate an entire tree on their own. So I’m going to need more. However, I’ve decided that I’m not going to sacrifice quality for quantity, and by that I mean I’m not going to rush out and purchase a boatload of random ornaments just to fill out the tree. Oh no, each and every piece of potential décor will have to be deemed acceptable via a painstakingly-detailed review process consisting of making sure it satisfies at least one of the following conditions:

• If it’s store-bought, it must be at least as amazing as the bacon-and-eggs ornament. (Which is a pretty tall order.)
• If it’s hand-made, it must have been done so with love. Also, it can't have lots of pointy pieces, as I've had my fill of those putting up the tree in the first place.

Now, I realize that due to this rigid stance, my tree may not actually get fully trimmed this year. However, I refuse to compromise, and if December 25^th rolls around and I have the most pathetic looking prefabricated piece of nature ever in my living room, it’ll be just fine with me. After all, I’m a man, and I can change, if I have to, but I’ll be darned if I’m caught dead with a tree with substandard ornaments in my living room.

You may now applaud.

Thoughts From An Introvert

On many occasions in the past I’ve referred to myself as a “reserved Finlander,” which has not only been my way of honoring my ancestry, but also to explain why my blood composition is, at this point, roughly 50 percent coffee, and also why I do my best to never draw undue attention upon myself.

In general, Finns are known for their caution, reserve, and silence. (In fact, calling myself a “reserved” Finlander is probably redundant.) This Finn stereotype is very well-known, to the point where you can find quite a few good jokes about it on the internet:

You know you’ve been in Finland too long when “No comment” becomes a conversation strategy.

Two Finns, the best of friends, were taking a sauna. The first Finn asks the second how he is. An hour later, during which time neither Finn has spoken, the second replies: "Are we here to babble or to take a sauna?"

And my personnel favorite…

Did you hear about the Finnish husband who loved his wife so much that he almost told her?

Like the subjects of these jokes, I too am cautious, reserved, and silent, and until recently I’d never really thought that much about it beyond the fact that is was simply my heritage showing through. However, I've now only realized that this places me – along with the stereotypical Finn – into the category of a Grade A introvert.

I’d never really pondered the topic of introverts vs. extraverts before, but when I finally did, I soon found this: “Introverted people make their own energy and, rather than taking it from others, give it on social contact. This means that they naturally find most interaction exhausting and need time to recharge.”

As I read this my eyes got wide, and I started to point frantically at the screen and hoot in an unintelligible manner. It explained a lot of things, especially my not wanting to talk to, or make eye contact with, anybody ever, along with my nearly-overwhelming desire to never leave the house unless it’s actively on fire.

But that wasn’t all. It explained a whole lot more, including, but not limited to, the following:

1.) Sometimes on a Saturday, it’ll be around 8:00 pm and I’ll realize that I haven’t talked out loud since sometime on Friday. At this point, realizing that it’s been a near-perfect day, I’ll execute an enthusiastic fist pump and yell, “Yes!!” (Except since I haven’t talked all day, it will sound more like, “Ythhhhh!”)

2.) Not that I don’t like people, mind you. Sure, I may ignore them for the most part, especially those I’m not great friends with, but it’s just that introverts are terrible at small talk, and sometimes it’s easier to say nothing at all than it is to try to come up with something that doesn’t sound completely ridiculous. (“Um… so… are those shoes comfortable?”)

3.) While I don’t go out of my way to insert myself into large crowds, I don’t really mind them, just as long as nobody is paying attention to me. However, if I were ever to be at a baseball game and the cameras panning the crowd suddenly projected my face up onto the big screen, I’m pretty sure my immediate reaction would be to go into the fetal position and whimper for several hours. (Much like what happens when I’m up to bat while playing softball and I notice that the entire other team is looking directly at me from their defensive positions.)

4.) If it were up to me, spotlights would be banned.

5.) While at a large social gathering, I generally find myself annoyed by whoever had taken up the mantle of Life Of The Party. From a dark corner I’ll be thinking, “Who does he think he is, being entertaining and generally making this an enjoyable experience for everybody involved??!!”

6.) During said large social gathering, as I hide in a dark corner and get more and more annoyed, I tend to take on the characteristics of a statue, although usually a bit less animated. However, the smaller the crowd is at a given social gathering, the more interactive I get, to the point where if it's ever made up of only a handful of people, I actually become quite rambunctious. (Side note: “rambunctious” is now one of my favorite words.)

7.) Also, when I’m by myself I’m basically the most fun person on the face of the earth, although you’re just going to have to trust me on that one.

8.) In my opinion, if a social gathering has to consist of more than 4-6 people, the ideal place for it to occur would be in a building consisting of multiple small rooms, all of which hold only 4-6 people and preferably also have coffee brewing.

9.) I have no problems going on solo road trips. They’re quiet, incredibly relaxing, and there’s never any external demands on my schedule. Also, nobody will ever know if I eat an entire family-sized bag of peanut butter cups.

10.) A good day at work for me is one where nobody bugs me, and also where I don’t have to speak up during a meeting that has more than five attendees.

11.) Being on the receiving end of any amount of focused attention is bad, even if that attention is for something positive. For example, if I ever received a rousing round of applause for something, I’d most likely have no recourse but to create a distraction, possibly through the use of smoke bombs, and then run away.

12.) After I die, a best case scenario would be that I’d be buried in a nondescript location without any sort of tombstone. However, if that weren't possible, my second choice is to be buried somewhere that anybody wanting to visit me would have to first hike twenty miles over a snowcapped mountain peak, then ford several raging rivers, and finally climb over a barbed wire fence just to find my grave, at which point they’d see the following inscribed on my tombstone: “Mind Your Own Business.” (Which is also what I want the entirety of my obituary to read.)

**********

Overall, after some thought, I've decided that I don't really mind being an introvert. In fact, I like that I don’t ever have to be the center of attention, and also that it doesn’t take much for me to keep myself amused for extended periods of time. (“Hey, a book! My weekend is planned! And also possibly March!”) It keeps things pretty simple, and I’m a big believer in simple.

In closing, I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies to anybody I’ve ever ignored for what seemed to be no good reason at all. You probably thought that I was just being a jerk, but most likely I’d already expended too much energy on being social and was “charging my batteries.”

Now, with that being said, go away and leave me alone. I’m exhausted.

How true.

The Time I Booed Garth Brooks

It’s not often that one is given the chance to heartily boo a country music icon, so when the chance came up, I quickly joined in with the rest of the crowd, adding to the soaring crescendo of displeasure that filled the expanses of the arena.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, so let’s jump back a bit to about two hours prior, or roughly 8:27 pm. The location was the Target Center in Minneapolis, and along with thousands of others, I was waiting for Garth Brooks to appear.

Now, Garth is definitely Top Three in my book (along with Merle and Strait) so needless to say I was excited. However, I was also bored, as I was sick of watching the advertisements for GhostTunes that had been playing on the big screen for about two presidential administrations as we waited for Mr. Brooks, who I was beginning to think had forgotten about the concert and was sleeping on his couch in Oklahoma, to make an appearance.

For those unaware, GhostTunes is the new digital music service that Garth has launched, and he’s definitely pushing it at his concerts. Now, I don’t know much about the service itself, but all I can say is that its logo is a little ghost with headphones who’s quite familiar looking, to the point where as I watched the stream of never-ending advertisements, I kept waiting for Pac-Man to show up and chomp it.

Everybody else waiting with me must have been sick of GhostTunes adds too, and the crowd, apparently thinking that it was still the 90’s, decided to try and get The Wave going. During the first few attempts, it died rather quickly, as one grumpy section of fans refused to participate. I watched them enviously, wishing that I could be a part of their stubbornness. (I’m very good at non-participation.) The rest of the crowd, however, kept trying, and eventually even the crotchety individuals of Section Grumpy were driven by implicit social pressure to throw up their hands, and thus The Wave made several successful circles around the arena. This was amusing for a minute or so, but soon everybody got tired of it and continued to wait in a non metachronally-rhythmic fashion until the lights finally went dim.

Garth hadn’t forgotten about us!

After a 60 second countdown on the big screen, he came out onstage amidst a tidal wave of hissing steam, seizure inducing lights, and blaring music, singing the title song to his new album “Man Against Machine.” Nobody in the crowd knew the words, and so the general response was one of mild confusion, along with a lot of blinking due to the massive amounts of flashing lights. I half expected a holographic ghost to go floating by.

But this didn’t last long, as the lightshow ended and Garth quickly dove into his catalog of classic hits, starting with “Rodeo,” followed by “Two Of A Kind.” Most of the crowd quickly joined in the singing, but I held back, as it takes me quite a while to work up to engaging in something so boisterous and flamboyant as singing at a concert.

An unexpected moment came during “The Beaches of Cheyenne,” where I noticed there were two fiddles going, which made me quite happy, since fiddles just make everything better. (Why do you think “fiddlesticks” is such a great word?)

Eventually, we got to one of the highlights of the evening, which was “The River,” during which time hundreds of glowing cell phones were held aloft, giving the arena an almost magical feel, and everybody (including me!) happily sang along. By this point we’d all been totally sucked in, as evidenced by the fact that we were soon cheering wildly and singing along to a song about grisly murder. (“Papa Loved Mama.”)

Next, Garth mentioned how he was about 110 years old, but that he’d learned to pace himself, at which point he then jumped into the frenetic “Ain’t Going Down ('Til The Sun Comes Up)” where he ran around like a maniac and climbed the spherical cage that the drummer was playing in. During this time I’m quite certain that he suffered several cardiac events, along with possibly a mild stroke, but man was it entertaining!

The concert rolled on, and soon we were again cheering wildly and singing along to another tune about grisly murder. (“The Thunder Rolls”)

Then came something else from his new album, a song titled “People Loving People,” which was the cue for about half the arena to head for the bathroom. The rest of us stayed behind, and at Garth’s instructions, we clapped and sang along to the lyrics that were showing on the big screen. (I’m not sure if they were for him or us.) Or at least we tried to clap and sing along. I’m terrible at clapping in rhythm, and after screwing up several times, I gave up and decided to instead focus my energy entirely on screwing up the lyrics, which I accomplished even though at several points during the song they were, and I quote: “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!”

Once everybody returned from the bathroom, Trisha Yearwood joined the party and we all cheered wildly and sung along to a song about cheating on your partner. (“In Another’s Eyes.”) When it was over, Garth stepped back and let her sing “X’s and O’s,” during which time the big screen showed clips of bloopers from her cooking show. I’m not kidding. I still don’t get it.

To be totally honest, I expected to be bored by Trisha’s part of the show, but the woman can sing, and I found myself thoroughly enjoying her five song set. I also spent part of this time people-watching, which I found to be thoroughly entertaining because the vast majority of the crowd was by this point dancing in a manner that can only be described as incredibly awkward. (“Sway left… sway right… what am I supposed to do with my hands?!!”)

After Trisha left the stage, Garth returned and soon after came another highlight, “Calling Baton Rouge,” a great song with chaotic energy. I didn’t even mind the fact that there wasn’t anybody playing the banjo. (Banjos are almost as cool as fiddles.)

Next up, “Friends in Low Places,” which is where the booing came in, although initially the place erupted into hearty cheers that lasted throughout the first two verses and chorus. After that came the break before the third verse, which is where Garth typically engages the audience for a while, just to make them have to wait for what’s going to be arguably the highlight of the entire show. During this time, he casually mentioned that during this tour they weren’t going to play the third verse, which is what elicited the loud cascade of good-natured booing. Sticking to his script, Garth reiterated the point, which meant that we got to boo him again, which was an incredible amount of fun. Finally, he gave up teasing us and launched into verse 3, and we all cheered wildly and sung along, despite the fact that the song wasn’t about grisly murder.

After a requisite performance of “The Dance,” the band and Garth left the stage, which then led to the first encore, which was “The Fever” and featured an incredible fiddle part. During this time, a long treadmill (honestly) was activated on the front of the stage, which allowed Garth to moonwalk if he went against the grain, and sent him flying if he went with it. At one point the fiddle player jumped on, zoomed across, and nearly took out the moon-walking Garth, who was on the other side. All in all, it was great fun, even though it seemed like the entire concept had been designed by a six-year-old boy whose only goal in life was to see people crash into each other.

After the song, the treadmill was shut down and the band again left the stage. We all cheered, and eventually Garth came back out by himself for the second encore. With just his guitar, he sang pieces of several lesser-known numbers before doing a bit of another new one, “Mom.” Then the rest of the band came out and I got to listen to my second favorite song of all time, “Much Too Young.” (Anybody who knows me should know what my favorite is...) The finale then came in the form of a rousing rendition of “Standing Outside The Fire,” which was a great way to end the show, at which point I couldn’t hear anymore, due to prolonged exposure to an arena full of people yelling directly into my ears.

Overall, it was an excellent experience, and I highly recommend it to anybody, although ever since then the stupid GhostTunes mascot has been constantly floating through my thoughts, to the point where I’m pretty sure I’ve been mildly brainwashed by the pre-show advertisements. Hmm….maybe if I listen to a song about grisly murder, I can flush it all out.