6: Christmas
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From WB EZ Chicago, it's your radio playhouse. Hi, my name is Reverend Calvin Bridges, and I'm the Minister of Music at the Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church, and the music that you will hear tonight is being provided by the Faith Tabernacle Voices, and the Faith Tabernacle Youth Voices. King Jesus is the listening when you pray, King Jesus is the listening when you pray, waiting to hear you come forward and cheer you. King Jesus is the listening when you pray, If I hold my peace my Jesus will be coming for me one day. King Jesus is the listening when you pray, He's got power in his hands, and he's taking me away. King Jesus is the listening when you pray, King Jesus is the listening, listening when you pray, He's got power in his hands, and he's taking me away. King Jesus is the listening, King Jesus is the listening, King Jesus is the listening listening. King Jesus is the listening listening, King Jesus is the listening listening. King Jesus is the listening listening, King Jesus is the listening, King Jesus is the listening, King Jesus is the listening when you pray. Your radio playhouse, well it's a special treat tonight to bring you music over the course of the hour from the Faith Tabernacle Baptist Church down at 82nd and Stony on Chicago's Southside. Our thinking was that by this point in the Christmas season, people were pretty much tired of the regular Christmas records, so we thought that we would bring different music. Am I our glass? Also, this evening, we have Amazing New Stories by Reginald Gibbons and Bo O'Reilly and others. We have the debut of a new radio theatre company. How often do you really get to say those words in 1990? A new radio theatre company created by writer David Sedaris, his sister Amy, a bunch of other people that call themselves the pine tree gang. You know the thing about Christmas is that at Christmas people are like themselves, but more so. You know they're saying that you can tell a lot about a person in a crisis. You can tell a lot about a person at Christmas also, and that is not because Christmas is a crisis. One of the producers on this program, Nancy Updike has suggested this week, is because Christmas is the one a day in the American year when more than any other, we are all of us handed exactly the same stage props with which to manufacture a day. The same expectations, the same presence, the same tree, the same idea of the meal. All of that is handed to all of us, and everybody is trying to fashion a day out of exactly the same materials, and when people do that, you can see exactly who chooses what they choose, what they choose, and why. At Christmas they kind-hearted have an event in which they can exercise their kind-heartedness. The impatient have more reason to be impatient. The manipulative and controlling have a set of meals and gifts with which to manipulate others. Everybody is themselves, but more so. Which brings us to our radio play. A writer, David Sedaris, had an odd experience in his life. Namely, one of the first big public things that he did in his life is he went on to National Public Radio and told the story of how he had worked as an elf at Santa Land at Macy's department store for two Christmases. And pretty much for the course of the two years which followed every Christmas, he would get lots of calls from magazines and newspapers and TV and radio, people who wanted to hear yet another Christmas story, wanted him to unfold another Christmas story, bring one out. Here's the Christmas guy, here's the Christmas guy, and these requests were so inundated him and confounded him. No one wants to be considered for the rest of their life as an elf. And so I think that was part of the inspiration for his radio play this evening, the premier radio play of our new radio group here at your radio playhouse, the Pine Tree Gang. I decided to splurge and treat myself to a really extravagant present, something I had always wanted. Myself. Not who I wish I was or what others wanted me to be. No. Just plain old. Me. No fancy extras, no cash return, no exchange. Just myself. Jean Larkin. Wrapped up in a bright brown ribbon of self acceptance. Take it or leave it. Saying no to myself was a pattern as old as the checkerboard plaid I used to cover my windows. I decided to break my old pattern and set fire to my curtains, allowing both myself and others to start dealing with the real me. The me who asks, who says you can't drive to work at a go-kart when you feel like it? The me who says, let's start cooking with grapes for a change. I went through my life, removing all the barricades that said, no, you can't do that, because me, I can do anything I want. One of the things I can do is type, and another is to think about myself and my needs. I just never had the time or the opportunity to really knuckle down and practice my craft. After they had fired me for parking my go-kart in the boss's handicap space, I found myself with a lot of extra time on my hands. And the opportunity? It came by way of the Center for Annex Learning, a former indoor skating facility the city fathers have turned into what they call a school without walls. The classrooms are separated by curtains, but that's just for the sake of privacy. The real walls are in our minds, and the center is devoted to helping us tear them down, brick by brick. I can't stand walls, not anymore. You should see what I've done with my house. I'm still working on it, but in the meantime, I dropped by the center and signed up for a course called Writing for the Holidays, because, as the teacher said, chances are, if you've got a story to tell, you've got a story to sell. How many of you would like that jingling sound to come from your pockets? Would you like that? I would love it. If it sounds too good to be true, then think again. Picture all the magazines and newspapers in this country, lying side by side on a football field. That's a lot, right? And every single one of them is searching for a Christmas story to run in that all-important holiday issue. Even the radio and TV are looking for things like that. Newsletters, websites, town criers, you name it. It's a way of making yourself some real money. A thought that united everyone in the class. How much money are we talking about? Can I get it in advance? I want some boots. Can the money be spent on lodging? The money can be spent on anything you want, lodging, boots, gas, even stamps. What about drink and games of chance? That too. But first, you've got to sell your story, which means you'll have to know your audience. People, listen, listen. If you spent last Christmas, I don't know, coaching midget league basketball or designing a patio, chances are the editors over at cat fancy your chocolatier aren't going to be too interested. But can't you spend the holidays coaching midget league and like cats and chocolate? I do. No, of course, you can do both. But the chances are your one line, I like cats. Won't be enough for an editor whose audience is made up of people who more than like cats. For these people, the cat or the chocolate needs to be the focus of the whole holiday story. What if the magazine is for people who love not liking anything? And give them my number right away. No, seriously, the question's a good one. This young person seems to know what the magazine wants and that's the first step. If you want to be published, you have to find a magazine and really stake it out. Study it under a good strong lamp. The fine print, even the advertisements will give you an indication of who these people are and how the editors try to reach them. Yes. I once made a strong lamp out of a coconut husk, my mother's brother's cousin, Colonel Jeremy Hackford, found on the beach at Topsoil Island. The husk was tattered and sunburnt, resembling the head of one of grandmother's servants, a moon-faced child. Great. Great. So I want each and every one of you to do that, take a magazine and make it your own personal project. At the end of this course, I expect every single one of you to hold a contract in your hands. Let me rephrase that. If any of you don't want to publish a holiday story, I'm afraid I can't help you. I'd really love to be published, especially around the holidays. I'd take that money, the paper, clutch tight, like a prize, like a ticket, and I'd use it to fly, like a soft prayer carpet. I'd mount it and work our magic out of here, out of the window, and over the stained quilt of this life, this town where every stitch is a fence, a barrier, a landscape, embroidered with no, a land, so not to comfort, but to smother. I'd take that carpet. What if you'd really like to be published, but certain people think that you're dead, and it's better off to keep it that way?
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