Music Before the Money

“The doors opened and he was carried into the store by the mad rush of crazed women, fighting, screaming, clawing, scratching - all to get the coveted Cabbage Patch Doll.  Dolls were literally flying overhead as the women were screaming that they wanted a blonde, or blue eyes, or a redhead.  Fights broke out as 2 or more women all wanted the exact same doll.”

- Cabbage Patch Memories
http://collectdolls.about.com

I remember the Cabbage Patch craze and I really thought it had been brought on by the times. The early ’80’s was a time of uncertainty as the overspending and overbuilding of the ’70’s caught up. Bruce Springsteen wrote, “Foreman says these jobs are going boys and they ain’t coming back” And what time of year do you suppose that the bean counters with the large companies chose to lay off thousands of workers? You guessed it: Christmas. The Christmas of 1983 saw frenzies for Cabbage Patch dolls never before witnessed and this added to the aura of depression that hung over the Christmas season.

24 Years Later

In the past few years we have seen the rebirth of this odd social phenomena in the shape of Tickle-Me -Elmo-Dolls and PlayStation2. An employee of Toys ‘R Us in Mic Mac Mall during the Elmo craze, Kailin Glasgow, has a personal rendition of New York Yankees great Yogi Berra’s statement: “It’s deja vu all over again!” He lived through the Sesame Street puppet’s popularity and, this week, witnessed the Nintendo Wii madness.

“At Toys’ R Us,” Glasgow remembered, “we had a security gate that lifted up when we opened up in the morning. There was a large crowd waiting and, when they saw us in the store, some middle-aged ladies started shaking the gate. I thought it was going to come down on them!

Elderly Ladies Crawl After Elmo

“When the gate started to lift two of the ones up front got down on their knees and crawled under to be the first ones in. And they had dresses on!  Others tried to claw past them and then it was a stampede!”

Let’s fast forward two years. Glasgow now works for Best Buy and was tipped off that 60 of the Nintendo Wii’s were coming in and to be ready in the morning for a rush. When he left the store at 9:00pm the night before there was a long lineup already started in the cold temperatures. He arrived back to the store at 8:30am  and the line was three times as long. Many had stayed the whole night in sub-freezing temperatures.

Worse than Elmo!

“I remembered the Elmo thing,” he said, “so I was prepared for the worst. But it was even worse!”

Glasgow said the store had given out tickets to the first 60 people in the lineup to make sure they got a Wii. However, disgruntled buyers who never got tickets rushed the doors when it opened. “Cashiers were only supposed to cash out guys with tickets but some were intimidated and so guys without tickets got out with Wii’s.” So a few of those who had braved the elements, stayed all night and got a legitimate ticket came up short and left empty-handed.

Extortion

And there were others without tickets who used another method. “Some of the ones without tickets who rushed in and got to the Wii’s first, ” Glasgow went on, “grabbed a Wii and then told tickets holders who didn’t get one fast enough that they would only give it to them (the ticketholder) if they handed over some cash.”

FYI: Nintendo Wii’s will be available in larger quantities in mid January.

What Were They Thinking?

To these weird and frantic buyers who bullied other patrons using physical and mental intimidation to get a Christmas present I ask you to ponder some thoughts:

1. What ever happened to “peace and goodwill toward all men?”
2. What ever happened to, “It is better to give . . .”
3. What ever happened to Christmas?

I was never a bonafide jazz person. I like it but never to the extent where I had to listen to 2 sides to get me going in the morning like my old friend Sheila. She was an Esther Phillips fan and had everything (I think) by the great jazz singer.

But Oscar Peterson was someone who transcended the lines between popular, blues and jazz and had fans who loved different genres than jazz; just like someone who is not a hockey fan will appreciate Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby.

He was a Canadian, born in Montreal in 1925 and was originally trained by a classical teacher. While he was still a teenager he got a job playing piano on radio at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. A National Film Board short on Oscar and his trio landed them a spot at Carnegie Hall and the rest, as they say, is history.

My favorite memory of him was a radio interview when he recalled when his father, a CPR porter, brought an Art Tatum record home one day and put it on the phonograph. When Oscar heard the music coming from the next room he asked his father, “Hey, who’re those two piano players?”

A favorite of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong, Peterson recorded more than 100 albums and won 3 Grammy’s. His achievements in his home country did not go unnoticed and he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1985, his country’s highest honor.