ON THE AVENUES HOLIDAY SPECIAL: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2019 Remix).

Where did it all go wrong?

ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2019 Remix).

R.I.P. Miss Nadia (2002-2018)

This column contains bits and pieces published previously in varying forms at various places. Each year, it functions as the blog's unified, omnibus Christmas utterance -- or, if  you will, a primal scream.

It happens each holiday season.

During an otherwise random conversation about the uncanny tendency of local Democrats to experience tumescence whenever Jeff Gahan spits on the downtrodden, eventually someone looks at me with palpable dismay.

“Roger, you’re such a Grinch.”

My response never varies.

“Thank you very much.”

The roots of my longstanding Yuletide antipathy might be traced to Freudian conceits, Jungian counter-thrusts, references to childhood toilet training habits or the sheer pervasiveness of psychological repression stemming from residency in a nakedly fascistic state like Indiana, but in truth, it’s far simpler.

It goes back to that original, defining moment in every American boy’s life – not when it becomes clear that he’ll die some day without the saving grace of being able to hit a curveball, but the sudden, gut-wrenching discovery that in spite of the shameless propaganda fed to us by adults, who’d assured us that excruciating behavioral self-regulation would be rewarded by a gaudily costumed fat man parking his tricked-out sleigh on the roof and descending the chimney, that nope, in the end, it was nothing more than a shameless ruse.

Then it hits you: Santa Claus doesn’t really exist.

At all.

Our house didn’t even have a chimney, and you’d think this would have made me suspicious, but I was oblivious. When the shameful day of infamy arrived and my school mate chided me -- “c’mon, don’t tell me you still believe in Santa?” -- I did much more than merely shake Santa’s grip, cold turkey, right there on the spot.

I irrevocably disavowed the whole contrived Christmas spectacle, because even at such a tender age, I could see the dominoes falling as the previously sacrosanct Santa myth vaporized in plain sight, because if the grownups could mislead us about Santa, where would it end?

They might also be fibbing about those other edicts demanding compliance and conformity, from the civic foundational edifices of religion, patriotism and obedience, all the way to the commandment forbidding jaywalking.

The worst of it was sitting alone in my room, cross-legged on the cold tile floor, and experiencing the devastating frustration of knowing that I was far too young to properly drink my way through the rampant disappointment.

Santa’s unused cookies and milk were the best I could do, and then, as now, I udderly DETEST milk.

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In 1991, at the age of 31, I spent Christmas in the city of Košice -- today located in sovereign Slovakia, which then comprised the easternmost lands of Czechoslovakia. It was the mid-point of a six-month stint teaching conversational English to doctors and nurses at the city’s main hospital, an experience made possible by the Cold War’s end.

In 2016, Santa brought the gadget to digitize those
Košice slides from 1991-92. It's ongoing, into 2020.

Upon returning stateside in 1992, there was a brief break, and then I went back into the food and drink business, where I’ve been for the most part ever since.

Grinch or not, the approach of the holiday season in Košice proved fascinating. With no Thanksgiving to serve as mile marker, few signs were evident that Christmas was coming until the eve of St. Nicholas Day (December 6), when children scrubbed and polished their shoes, placing them on windowsills to be filled with candy and chocolate. Presumably, bad children would receive a bundle of twigs bound together for swatting their butts … as it should be.

In Communist times, the regime attempted to persuade the populace that a chap named Grandfather Frost brought these goodies, presumably on behalf of the benevolent leadership. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, back came Christmas trees and caroling in the streets, and while these were familiar to me, decorations didn't even begin to appear until the first part of December. I remarked to my uncomprehending students that they should contrive a holiday like Halloween to mark the true beginning of the shopping season.

Shopping season? It was quite ephemeral. Surely it’s different in 2018, but in 1991, only a few understated window displays were to be seen in shops, and high pressure, guilt-laced sales tactics were nowhere to be found.

However, one necessary seasonal item became ubiquitous during the week preceding Christmas. This was delicious carp, raised and fattened in farm ponds, not river bottoms, and brought to market in street-side barrels and oversized plastic tubs. Some buyers brought their own buckets to take the living fish home for a few days of further bathtub cleansing. Others had their purchase killed, weighed and wrapped on the spot.

Carp is the traditional Slovak meal for Christmas, accompanied by an array of special side dishes, and perhaps some steaming sauerkraut soup. There always was plenty of bottled lager, but the Christmas Eve toast in 1991 was chased with homemade peach brandy from a student’s village nearby: “To peace, health and a good harvest.”

---

Two or three lifetimes later, there was a second chance to be in Europe for Christmas. In 2009, we stayed in a rental apartment in Bamberg, Germany, a mere stone's throw from the Fässla and Spezial breweries. With the requisite open-air Christmas market, mulled wine and naturalistic decorations, Franconia’s version of the Yuletide season was obvious without being garish.

The Grinch in me was shaken, if as yet unbowed.

On Christmas morning, we strolled through the Altstadt’s deserted streets and climbed Altenburg hill to the medieval castle, affording a sweeping view of the valley and Bamberg's dizzying number of church spires. Most businesses were closed, but pleasingly, some food and drink purveyors were open in a city blessedly free of the archaic blue laws still existing in purportedly secular Indiana, which up until 2015 prevented alcohol from being served on Dec. 25 – a purely Christian holiday.

Clouds rolled overhead, and it was a bracing and exhilarating walk. Descending the commanding heights back to our riverside starting point, we passed the city museum in the old town hall astride the Regnitz and saw that the doors were open. Inside was a fine collection of 18th-century porcelain from Meissen, and one of 38 nativity scenes on display in and around Bamberg during the holiday season.

A reconnaissance of Ludwigstrasse's expanse revealed that Bamberg's Chinese restaurant owners are not as ambitious as metro Louisville's, with all three closed for the day. However, at the train station, the bakery and small grocery both were open, and I bought a handful of half-liter Schlenkerla Märzen lagers to accompany the evening's home cooked vegetable soup.

With no close friends in Bamberg, we kept ourselves company, having procured groceries and libations in advance. With bottles of Fässla in support, Christmas evening selections on the telly revealed a diverse Euro holiday tableau.

There was a Basque celebration from Bilbao, with crazy costumes, quasi-operatic tunes and the inexplicable, prehistoric language spoken by the world's first cod fishermen. The whole time, I kept expecting a Muse concert to break out.

We watched a performance in Salzburg of Mozart's The Magic Flute; snippets of a schlocky Bavarian idyll, rather like the Osmonds meeting Lawrence Welk, but in lederhösen and dirndls; and then a Berlin performance by Max Raab and the Hotel Palast Orchestra, a stagy society presence reminiscent of Joel Grey’s role in Cabaret.

Finally came City Lights, the not-so-silent masterpiece by Charlie Chaplin, without dialogue but featuring a musical soundtrack as a concession to new 1931 technology. The Little Tramp falls for a blind flower girl ... and meets a drunken millionaire along the way.

On the 26th, Café Abseits beckoned again, with a fine draft list of regional, seasonal Bockbier. Later, at Spezial, delightful Ochsenbrust in horseradish sauce with a dumpling was accompanied by several of the brewpub’s quintessential smoked lagers.

No, I don’t “do” Christmas ... although on occasion, vague and ambiguous exceptions are allowed.

---

More recently, we've enjoyed the good fortune to be in Munich and Bamberg (2018), and Zagreb, Ljubljana, Lake Bled and Trieste (2019) during their annual Christmas market season.

Whether it's thousands of Bavarians thronging the streets of Munich, or a few dozen Slovenes congregating around the market stalls in Bled, one can't help being impressed by the sense of community on display -- and I'll leave it at that.

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Through it all, music soothes the heretical breast, just so long as it isn't the pervasive and disgusting same-old-suspect soundtrack heard playing in every public place, beginning the day after Harvest Homecoming and lasting through January.

Each year I make a special effort to listen to a recording of "Ring Christmas Bells." As always, it reminds me of our high school choral director, Michael Neely, who warned us that later in our lives, we'd come to regret taking our singing voices for granted. We scoffed, and of course, he was absolutely right.

(Mick left us in 2016. He really did bring joy to our world).

Three decades of beer and tobacco have rendered my singing voice moot, and now I’m little more than an interpreter of songs, with the atonal wailings occurring well out of human earshot. Our cats suffer the most.

Imperfect pitch aside, the only Christmas songs I can even tolerate are the ones we sang in choir, and the only other performance I truly enjoy is "Fairytale Of New York" by The Pogues, with a guest appearance by the late, lovely Kirsty McColl.

To repeat, I don't "do" Christmas ... but in spite of myself, the holiday occasionally provides a few pleasant memories -- even if, quoting Chico Marx, some things never change, and “There ain’t no sanity claus.”

Especially in New Gahania.

Recently these lumps of coal are being personally wrapped by the snowman, Gauleiter Duggins, to be thrown through the windows of public housing residents who've inadvertently found themselves residing in the path of our mayoral dullard's petty ambitions.

That's why I won't be ending this year's holiday column on a pleasant note, for peak Scrooge is alive and well and inhabiting Jeff Gahan's well-fed and highly financed body.

For the sake of our city most vulnerable residents, let's hope the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come makes an appearance at Dear Leader's bunker -- although it won't do much good if Mike Hall comes out to greet him.

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Recent columns:

December 19: ON THE AVENUES: These parents oppose their children's exposure to the PURE Initiative as part of the NA-FC Schools curriculum. Here's why.

December 12: ON THE AVENUES: He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.

December 5: ON THE AVENUES: Ladislav's language, 1989 - 1990 (Part 2).

November 28: ON THE AVENUES: Ladislav's language, 1989 - 1990 (Part 1).

November 21: ON THE AVENUES: Rest in peace, Kevin Hammersmith. Eight years later, you're very much missed.

Munich Tales 2018: What would the holidaze be without "beer and the pissoir"?

Photo credit.

I'm writing these words on the 15th of December, imagining that on the morning of the 21st, I'll have consumed too many delicious Rauchbiers at Schlenkerla in Bamberg on Thursday night. Vegas won't touch the action on this particular assumption.

By early afternoon, we'll be taking the train back to Munich after the overnight stay, and pausing only momentarily before heading to the arena for the basketball game (FC Bayern and Braydon Hobbs vs. Real Madrid).

Prior to leaving Bamberg, something I never find it easy to do, let's turn back the pages to a post prompted by our 2009 visit during Christmas.

In the purest of anthropological senses it was a revelation to witness the holiday observed with a manner of dignity and traditional restraint, at least by prevailing and manic American consumer standards.

In 2009, the genuine wintry weather in Bamberg provided ample opportunity to drink beer and eat pork indoors, in proximity to grandly tiled stoves fairly pumping heat, with an inevitable chilly contrast when it came time to use the restrooms. While not about Christmas in any specific sense, these observations now invariably strike me as seasonal.

---

Beer ... and the pissoir.

Any farm boy can tell you what happens in winter, when hot liquid hits frozen ground and steam rises, and so my youthful reveries tending our livestock came back to me after I made my way from the toasty upholstered interior of the beer café, through the entry door, across a corridor, through a second door, and outside to where the restrooms were located just off the snowy, arched passageway leading from the street.

They were unheated, with a predictable temperature differential. I was in and out in a flash, returning to cool smoked lager in a far warmer room.

At least there was plumbing, albeit frigid fixtures.

It hasn't always been the case. In 1999, while drinking draft Baltika in Moscow at a tiny bar located in the concrete bowels of a towering modern concrete housing block, my fumbling water closet query in deficient Russian was met with a shrug. The bar man gestured in the direction of what proved to be a slippery collection of muddy shrubs around the darkened corner.

It may have been Archie Bunker who observed, “You don’t buy beer, you rent it,” and your humble columnist has gleaned a fair amount of experience in such matters in his career as professional beer drinker, especially when imbibing in Europe. Many aspects of the continent’s beer and brewing cultures have changed since 1985, but none more so than a steady escalation in cleanliness and comfort of the facilities at a typical watering hole.

Good, bad or indifferent, my personal theory is that such improvements owe more to the course of the women’s liberation movement than the interest of most males in facets of basic hygiene. In all likelihood, publicans continued pointing to the bushes out back until modernity brought changes in migratory patterns, in the form of female patronage. Only then were modern plumbing solutions contemplated.

Beer and Bamberg (Germany) are gloriously intertwined, which is why I became a regular visitor so long ago. During the 2009 Christmas trip, it suddenly dawned on me that the pleasant modern urinals in the men’s room of Brauerei Spezial (founded in 1536) weren’t there until the late 1990’s. Before that, men urinated into tiled trenches running along the floor. These trenches presumably emptied into the sewer system, although sometimes it’s best to take nothing for granted.

While I hardly can attest to how it was done during the Middle Ages, or even as recently as the 1970’s, my impression is that the process of waste disposal always has differed little from my experience in Moscow, or this one in Albania, circa 1994: A lovely, contemporary wood-lined room with a spotless, modern stainless steel urinal … connected to PVC pipe, which led outside to termination just shy of the town’s riverbank.

Unscientifically speaking, you can look at the many centuries-old brewery taps and public houses in places like Bamberg and see that restrooms weren’t included in the original architectural designs. They were added later, away from the seating areas, often tacked onto the interior courtyards that are a familiar feature of these older buildings.

Modernity has deprived us of the European waste disposal mechanism I miss the least: The fearsome female restroom attendant. Sometimes she was ensconced behind sliding glass windows, but more often she remained seated at a rickety wooden table in front of the battery of stained tiles, guarding her ceramic plate, which was intended for loudly smacking coins into, indicating you’d paid the required tariff and qualified for a square of toilet paper (if really necessary).

In theory, the women were there to keep the area clean, and surprisingly, they often did just that, sometimes while you were otherwise engaged in your business. It made for initial embarrassment, but after all, they were skilled and highly professionals, only doing their jobs.

Male toilet attendants were permitted, but invariably they were less reliable than the elderly ladies, especially as the geography passed eastward from capitalism to communism. When I was teaching English in Slovakia, I was a frequent customer of a venerable drinking establishment where the restrooms were in the basement (not uncommon).

My preferred brand of beer also was the nightly preferred beverage of the subterranean lavatory commandant. Whenever his plate contained the requisite number of coins, he would climb the stairs for another pint of pay package, and by closing time, he could be found unconscious at his post, snoring in the sour, fetid air.

Now THAT’S motion-activated, folks.

Munich Tales 2018: Everything I like about Germany is tied up in one great package called Bamberg.

At this point in my life, there's probably nothing I can add to numerous previous statements of intense personal affection for the city of Bamberg. When I first began traveling, Munich was my Mecca, and I didn't visit Bamberg for the first time until 1991.

Since then, it's been an ongoing fascination, one scheduled for renewal later today when we hop a northbound train from Munich for one evening in the town I love so well.

There are far too many beer-drinking stories to fit into this post, so instead, consider these dispatches from our 2009 "The Baylors Do Christmas In Bamberg."

I originally composed and posted these comments from a balky computer, with internet access having been included in the price of our quasi-Airbnb lodging. The trip began as we dodged a blizzard in Paris, although our luggage wasn't as lucky.

It got better after this, although I had no way of knowing at the time that the trip would be our last until 2013. The years 2010, 2011 and 2012 were spent engaging in ultimately demoralizing trench warfare at Bank Street Brewhouse.

Now, back to Bamberg in 2009.

---

I. Monday 21 December ’09: Apart from one tiny glitch ...

We are safely in Bamberg, but our luggage is not, and only Air France has the information, although CM Coffey still does not and probably never will. If we do not have our bags or a suitable lead by Tuesday, it will be time to buy clothes. Needless to say, this was not a primary reason for us to visit Germany, but so be it.

Know this: German keyboards are different.

ü, ä, ö, ẞ ... although nothing compared to others I have used.

It snowed quite a lot here over the weekend, and temps today probably were in the low twenties. Fortunately, we are staying a stone's throw from both Fässla (the bottling line is just outside our window) and Spezial. Last evening's Ochsenbrust in horseradish sauce with dumpling took a bit of the sting out of wearing the same clothes for 24 hours, now 48, although perhaps it was the gently smoked amber Lagerbier that Spezial does so well.

My initial take on Franconian Christmas: It is festive, and there is much excitement, and even Christmas music in the Biomarkt down the street, but all of it seems to take place without the considerable surface glitz that we enjoy in the States. Decorations are subdued, and very naturalistic for the most part.

More as we go. Tchuss.

II. Tuesday 22 December 2009: To buy or not to buy.

Through the ever helpful offices of Bliss Travel, we now have the scoop.

We're in Bamberg, and our bags are still in Paris. They had been rerouted onto a flight Sunday night, which was cancelled. Then, with the northern regions of Europe beset with snow and ice, with resulting snafus, our luggage was placed back in the queue to await storage space on one of Air France's four dailies to Nürnberg, all of which were sold out on Monday and Tuesday.

But it's better knowing than not knowing, and with temperatures now up in the forties and the snow all melted in Bamberg, we spent the morning shopping for a set each of replacement wear and light toiletries. There as yet has not been the first communication from Delta or Air France as to when we might expect to receive our things, and in this uncertain atmosphere, it seems senseless to spend too much until necessary.

Then, when necessary, comes the complete Lederhosen outfit.

Here in an hour or so we'll be heading out to the Jako Arena for a German Bundesliga basketball game between the Bamberg Brose Baskets and Paderborn. Gerhard at the Cafe Abseits, a good beer bar on the east side of town, is a basketball fan and was running a ticket promotion from the cafe. He graciously set aside two, and we visited him at lunch to redeem and chat. I had a fine Helles Bock from Mönchsahmbach and an equally good countryside Rauchbier from a brewery that slips my mind. Will there be beer at the game? We'll know soon enough.

Tomorrow I'm slated to meet beer importer Dan Shelton at Spezial for a summit that should include a visit to Mahr's. All this, and there has not been time to have an Eiche at Schlenkerla. Matthias understands. Spezial has been the attraction thus far, and there's nothing shoddy about that.

III. Wednesday 23 December 2009: Tale of one city and many breweries and basketball therein.

Lunch at noon at Spezial the day before Christmas Eve turns out to be something that leads elsewhere, namely Mahr's, Schlenkerla and Klosterbrau. Whoa.

And, ending at Fässla to jostle among the high schoolers for carry-out bottles as part of the process of laying in for the holidaze. Whoa again.

Last night's Brose Baskets win over Paderborn was lopsided. Bamberg's team is good, but I can't say that the quality of play was much beyond mid-major college in the States. Entertaining, but limited. I'll remember Casey Jacobsen and Elton Brown, but moreover, I'll remember the way the crowd reacted to the American named Eric Taylor, a European league lifer (born in 1976). Also, there's Predrag Supat, the Serb, who dominated the first half for Brose. Bamberg is a basketball city in German terms. Bob Knight would approve.

I'm fairly blitzed at this point, and will say Tchuss.

Thursday 24 December 2009: The French have not released my bag, and I, too, shall surrender soon.

We spent the morning shopping for little knick-knacks and more groceries to tide us through until Saturday, when many eateries and stores reopen. Quite a few will be closed through the weekend, meaning that I may have to trek to the train station for beer. Let's hope that the people's choice, Fässla, is open for carry-out bottles.

The students and youngsters were out in force last night. With a drinking age of 16 for beer, this translated into long lines at the "to go" windows and mayhem in the streets. It was a long day, with lunch at Spezial with Dan Shelton (of the importing company) and his wife. We met Urban Winkler of the Weissenohe brewery, toured the Spezial brewery, then walked to the Wunderburg neighborhood for quality time at Mahr's with Stephan Michel. Dan and Tessa split to return to their digs west of here, and after checking at the flat for the first of our bags (where in Paris is the other one?), we adjourned to the impossibly packed Schlenkerla tavern.

Unable to find Matthias Trum, and desirous of some peace for dinner, plans changed and the next stop was Klosterbrau for an excellent meal of venison, boar and a special seasonal black bock. Back home, I vaguely recall watching an interview with Michael Palin while snacking on pickled herring before passing out.

After greeting Bamberg in a blizzard, all the snow has gone and the sun is brightly shining as I type. The Christmas market in Maximillianplatz disappeared overnight, and all morning today and into the afternoon, businesses closed one by one, and the streets grew more and more quiet as people retreated to their homes and families. The next two days will be subdued, but I'm guessing that by Saturday, they'll have had enough of domesticity and will be looking for a place to get their drink on. I aim to be right beside them when this happens.

Friday 25 December 2009: Luggage in our time? Perhaps.

It's the most wonderful time of the year
When the French bring your bags and the fridge is still full of Bamberger beer
It's the most wonderful time of the year

Yes, we're told that a Weihnacht miracle will occur and the second of two suitcases will arrive via courier at around 19.00. I'll believe it when I carry the weight up the stairs, but there it is.

In spite of the baggage difficulties, it has been a fine holiday.

We set off this morning at ten to stroll through the Altstadt and climb Altenburg hill to the medieval castle that affords a sweeping view of the valley and Bamberg's dizzying number of church spires. The streets were deserted on Christmas morning. Pleasingly, some food and drink businesses already were open and serving, indicating that the city is blessedly free of the archaic blue laws that exist in Indiana and prevent alcohol from being served on a purely Christian holiday.

Clouds rolled overhead, and with temperatures in the low thirties and a brisk breeze sweeping the hilltop, it was a bracing and exhilarating walk. Descending the commanding heights back to our riverside starting point, we passed the city museum in the old town hall astride the Regnitz and saw that the doors were open. Inside was a fine collection of 18th century Porcelain from Meissen, and one of 38 nativity scenes on display in and around Bamberg during the holiday season.

A reconnaissance of Ludwigstrasse's expanse revealed that Bamberg's Chinese restaurant owners are not as ambitious as metro Louisville's, with all three closed for the day. However, at the train station, the bakery and small grocery both were open, and I bought a handful of half-liter Schlenkerla Märzen lagers to accompany the evening's home cooked vegetable soup.

From the beginning, we had agreed that in the absence of truly close friends in Bamberg, it was perfectly acceptable to spend the 24th and 25th keeping ourselves loving company in our rented apartment, hence the bags of groceries and liquids procured in advance. This led to a Thursday evening with the hundreds of channels available on the telly, and a Fässla or two.

First we chanced upon the Basque network from northeastern Spain, and a public Christmas celebration, presumably in Bilbao, with crazy costumes, quasi-operatic tunes and the inexplicable, pre-historic language spoken by the world's first cod fishermen. The whole time, I kept expecting a Muse concert to break out.

Next, we viewed a 2006 performance in Salzburg of Mozart's "The Magic Flute," and while entirely unrelated to Christmas, the choreography was inspired, and the female singers displayed much cleavage. Thumbs up. This was followed by snippets of a schlocky Bavarian idyll, rather like the Osmonds meeting Lawrence Welk in lederhösen and dirndls, then a quick bout of channel surfing to Berlin and a performance by Max Raab and the Hotel Palast Orchestra. For the uninitiated, Raab and the boys do 1920's arrangements of popular music of the day. He sings in the style of the society orchestra hearthrobs, all the while cultivating a dry stage presence reminiscent of Joel Grey in "Cabaret."

Finally, the Arte network was screening "City Lights," the not-so-silent masterpiece by Charlie Chaplin. There is no dialogue, but a soundtrack as a concession to the new technology of 1931. In it, the Little Tramp falls for a blind flower girl ... and meets a drunken millionaire along the way. For the first time in years, I remembered checking out Super-8 versions of Chaplin's one-reelers ("Tillie's Punctured Romance"?) from the New Albany Public Library, taking them home, and resolving to make silent films.

I must go now to await the Nürnberg airport courier in precisely the same way as kids look for Santa. Tomorrow, the Cafe Abseits beckons, with Schlenkerla reopening Sunday. Monday is a short bus ride to Memmelsdorf and a meeting with Herr Straub at the Drei Kronen brewery (and restaurant, and hotel), and on Tuesday, I hope to locate Stephan at Mahr's for a brewery tour.

Sunday 27 December 2009: Settling down to smoked beer.

Damn ... I skipped a day, eh?

After two days spent walking quite a lot, we cut back on Sunday and had a lie-in. Breakfast was at 11:00 a.m., and consisted of black coffee and herring salad prepared with beets. I thought of my friend Suzanne's late mother, whose herring salad is the stuff of legend, omitting the beets, and adding voluminous onion and garlic. Wonderful memories, indeed.

It was another sunny winter's day, not quite as bright as yesterday, but still blue. We walked to the top of Michaelsberg hill and observed the grounds of the monastery, and then descended to Schlenkerla tavern for a meeting with the owner Matthias Trum and a few drams of smoked lager. After a bit, a Haxe (pork knuckle) magically appeared, and was duly devoured. The Eiche (oak-smoked) Rauchbier was especially interesting.

I've little else to say. Bamberg rewards leisurely exploration, and good beer and conviviality never are very far away. The city has been slumbering during the weekend, but will reawaken on Monday. Lunchtime at Spezial seems a certainty. Bock, anyone?

Wednesday 30 December 2009: Adaptive reuse and a Biomarkt on Obere Königstrasse.

Our lodging is located on a narrow side street that runs past the Fässla Brewery, which is running full tilt and contributing wonderful aromas to the neighborhood, and into Obere Königstrasse. Spezial's brewery and restaurant face Fässla's across Obere Königstrasse, and both have been there for a few hundred years. I'd guess that these are the oldest buildings on the east side of the Main-Donau Canal.

When we came here in 2007, there was a huge hole in the ground just off the corner of Obere Königstrasse and Luitpoldstrasse, which leads from the train station toward the Altstadt. The 19th-century building on the corner still stood and was being incorportated into the building that eventually would rise from the hole. It still wasn't finished a year ago, but now is: A sleek, modern Best Western hotel that still fits into the historic architecture of the area. The ground floor of the Best Western is a Buck Rogers-style Biomarkt, sort of a Whole Foods kind of place dedicated to organic foods.

What's interesting about this to me is that even though you might not notice, I've been coming here long enough to grasp that the section of Obere Königstrasse running past the new hotel and the old breweries has been in transition. A very high level of transition compared to New Albany, but flux nonetheless. Formerly there were established businesses (an apothecary, retail shops) that have now gone. The ghost signage gives them away. They were beginning to be replaced by kebap stands and Chinese trinket shops, and these newcomers remain, but now there are two "natural" juice and tea bars, as well as a recent organic bakery.

I'm not sure if the Biomarkt's arrival spurred their establishment, or if their presence encouraged the Biomark's capitalists to set up shop. It is encouraging to note that the ancient breweries fit perfectly even if we can't vouch for the origins of the voluminous pork dishes on their daily menus. Their beer is fresh and brewed on the spot - 'nuff said.

We tend to come to these places and imagine that nothing has changed, but it doesn't take long to see that it's patently untrue. The key is: Do they encourage and manage the inevitable change? I think so, and quite well.

Thursday 31 December 2009: Silvester, but no Tweety.

Here in Germany, New Year's Eve is known as Silvester, and appears to be another handy excuse to close down the shop (whatever it is) and relax. Same goes to a lesser extent on January 1.

Previously, Christmas Eve counted as one such excuse, followed by Christmas Day I and II, the latter corresponding to Boxing Day for those Anglophiles reading, and although I've found two Irish pubs in downtown Bamberg, neither greeted me with the smell of black pudding or the flavor of black gold on the day after the day.

The only other time I spent New Year's Eve in Europe was during the transition from 1991 to 1992, in Kosice, Slovakia, where the most memorable tradition was proof that the warnings of my students not to stroll along the streets precisely at midnight were spot-on, because that's when people began throwing empty wine, champagne and beer bottles out of their windows. One needn't be a practitioner of nuclear physics to grasp the results, especially beneath the stories-high Communist era housing blocks.

Given that it is raining and most businesses are closed, we have not left the apartment today, having visited Spezial's handy bottled beer carry-out window Wednesday night upon returning from a fine session at Schlenkerla with Matthias Trum and his wife, Sandra.

During the course of roaming, we have met a pleasant young couple who run an espresso bar adjacent to the construction zone that marks the spot where a new replacement bridge for the vanished Kettenbrücke will soon rise. It's been open since November 1. We stopped there several times because it's on the direct route home from the Altstadt, and we bonded over professional basketball fandom, as they are fervent supporters of the Brose Baskets. They have invited us to coffee today even though the bar is closed for the holiday. We're told to knock conspiratorially on the door. If only Spezial offered the same option.

We seem to be winding down now as the end of the holiday draws near. The likelihood of time- consuming security checks at Nürnberg for the first leg of the outbound flight compelled us to shift gears and book a room at the airport hotel for tomorrow night. The flight is at 6:30 a.m., and would have required a 3:30 a.m., 85 Euro fixed-rate cab ride, but this way, we're only meters away from strip search after the early alarm sounds. There'll be a chance to spend the afternoon in Nürnberg, and perhaps eat some of the city's famous Wurst.

Excuse me ... I hear the sounds of pre-packing taking place. Is Fässla open today?

ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2018 Remix).

ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2018 Remix).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

This column contains bits and pieces published previously in varying forms at various places. Each year, it functions as the blog's unified, omnibus Christmas utterance -- or, if  you will, a primal scream.

It happens each holiday season.

During an otherwise random conversation about the uncanny tendency of local Democrats to experience tumescence whenever Jeff Gahan spits on the downtrodden, eventually someone looks at me with palpable dismay.

“Roger, you’re such a Grinch.”

My response never varies.

“Thank you very much.”

The roots of my longstanding Yuletide antipathy might be traced to Freudian conceits, Jungian counter-thrusts, references to childhood toilet training habits or the sheer pervasiveness of psychological repression stemming from residency in a nakedly fascistic state like Indiana, but in truth, it’s far simpler.

It goes back to that original, defining moment in every American boy’s life – not when it becomes clear that he’ll die some day without the saving grace of being able to hit a curveball, but the sudden, gut-wrenching discovery that in spite of the shameless propaganda fed to us by adults, who’d assured us that excruciating behavioral self-regulation would be rewarded by a gaudily costumed fat man parking his tricked-out sleigh on the roof and descending the chimney, that nope, in the end, it was nothing more than a shameless ruse.

Then it hits you: Santa Claus doesn’t really exist.

At all.

Our house didn’t even have a chimney, and you’d think this would have made me suspicious, but I was oblivious. When the shameful day of infamy arrived and my school mate chided me -- “c’mon, don’t tell me you still believe in Santa?” -- I did much more than merely shake Santa’s grip, cold turkey, right there on the spot.

I irrevocably disavowed the whole contrived Christmas spectacle, because even at such a tender age, I could see the dominoes falling as the previously sacrosanct Santa myth vaporized in plain sight, because if the grownups could mislead us about Santa, where would it end?

They might also be fibbing about those other edicts demanding compliance and conformity, from the civic foundational edifices of religion, patriotism and obedience, to the commandment forbidding jaywalking.

The worst of it was sitting alone in my room, cross-legged on the cold tile floor, and experiencing the devastating frustration of knowing that I was far too young to properly drink my way through the rampant disappointment.

Santa’s unused cookies and milk were the best I could do, and then, as now, I udderly DETEST milk.

---

In 1991, at the age of 31, I spent Christmas in the city of Košice -- today located in sovereign Slovakia, which then comprised the easternmost lands of Czechoslovakia. It was the mid-point of a six-month stint teaching conversational English to doctors and nurses at the city’s main hospital, an experience made possible by the Cold War’s end.

In 2016, Santa brought the gadget to digitalize those
Košice slides from 1991-92. It's ongoing, into 2019.

Upon returning stateside in 1992, there was a brief break, and then I went back into the food and drink business, where I’ve been for the most part ever since.

Grinch or not, the approach of the holiday season in Košice proved fascinating. With no Thanksgiving to serve as mile marker, few signs were evident that Christmas was coming until the eve of St. Nicholas Day (December 6), when children scrubbed and polished their shoes, placing them on windowsills to be filled with candy and chocolate. Presumably, bad children would receive a bundle of twigs bound together for swatting their butts … as it should be.

In Communist times, the regime attempted to persuade the populace that a chap named Grandfather Frost brought these goodies, presumably on behalf of the benevolent leadership. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, back came Christmas trees and caroling in the streets, and while these were familiar to me, decorations didn't even begin to appear until the first part of December. I remarked to my uncomprehending students that they should contrive a holiday like Halloween to mark the true beginning of the shopping season.

Shopping season? It was quite ephemeral. Surely it’s different in 2018, but in 1991, only a few understated window displays were to be seen in shops, and high pressure, guilt-laced sales tactics were nowhere to be found.

However, one necessary seasonal item became ubiquitous during the week preceding Christmas. This was delicious carp, raised and fattened in farm ponds, not river bottoms, and brought to market in street-side barrels and oversized plastic tubs. Some buyers brought their own buckets to take the living fish home for a few days of further bathtub cleansing. Others had their purchase killed, weighed and wrapped on the spot.

Carp is the traditional Slovak meal for Christmas, accompanied by an array of special side dishes, and perhaps some steaming sauerkraut soup. There always was plenty of bottled lager, but the Christmas Eve toast in 1991 was chased with homemade peach brandy from a student’s village nearby: “To peace, health and a good harvest.”

---

Two or three lifetimes later, there was a second chance to be in Europe for Christmas. In 2009, we stayed in a rental apartment in Bamberg, Germany, a mere stone's throw from the Fässla and Spezial breweries. With the requisite open-air Christmas market, mulled wine and naturalistic decorations, Franconia’s version of the Yuletide season was obvious without being garish.

The Grinch in me was shaken, if as yet unbowed.

On Christmas morning, we strolled through the Altstadt’s deserted streets and climbed Altenburg hill to the medieval castle, affording a sweeping view of the valley and Bamberg's dizzying number of church spires. Most businesses were closed, but pleasingly, some food and drink purveyors were open in a city blessedly free of the archaic blue laws still existing in purportedly secular Indiana, which up until 2015 prevented alcohol from being served on Dec. 25 – a purely Christian holiday.

Clouds rolled overhead, and it was a bracing and exhilarating walk. Descending the commanding heights back to our riverside starting point, we passed the city museum in the old town hall astride the Regnitz and saw that the doors were open. Inside was a fine collection of 18th-century porcelain from Meissen, and one of 38 nativity scenes on display in and around Bamberg during the holiday season.

A reconnaissance of Ludwigstrasse's expanse revealed that Bamberg's Chinese restaurant owners are not as ambitious as metro Louisville's, with all three closed for the day. However, at the train station, the bakery and small grocery both were open, and I bought a handful of half-liter Schlenkerla Märzen lagers to accompany the evening's home cooked vegetable soup.

With no close friends in Bamberg, we kept ourselves company, having procured groceries and libations in advance. With bottles of Fässla in support, Christmas evening selections on the telly revealed a diverse Euro holiday tableau.

There was a Basque celebration from Bilbao, with crazy costumes, quasi-operatic tunes and the inexplicable, prehistoric language spoken by the world's first cod fishermen. The whole time, I kept expecting a Muse concert to break out.

We watched a performance in Salzburg of Mozart's The Magic Flute; snippets of a schlocky Bavarian idyll, rather like the Osmonds meeting Lawrence Welk, but in lederhösen and dirndls; and then a Berlin performance by Max Raab and the Hotel Palast Orchestra, a stagy society presence reminiscent of Joel Grey’s role in Cabaret.

Finally came City Lights, the not-so-silent masterpiece by Charlie Chaplin, without dialogue but featuring a musical soundtrack as a concession to new 1931 technology. The Little Tramp falls for a blind flower girl ... and meets a drunken millionaire along the way.

On the 26th, Café Abseits beckoned again, with a fine draft list of regional, seasonal Bockbier. Later, at Spezial, delightful Ochsenbrust in horseradish sauce with a dumpling was accompanied by several of the brewpub’s quintessential smoked lagers.

No, I don’t “do” Christmas ... although on occasion, vague and ambiguous exceptions are allowed.

---

Through it all, music soothes the heretical breast, just so long as it isn't the pervasive and disgusting same-old-suspect soundtrack heard playing in every public place, beginning the day after Harvest Homecoming and lasting through January.

Each year I make a special effort to listen to a recording of "Ring Christmas Bells." As always, it reminds me of our high school choral director, Michael Neely, who warned us that later in our lives, we'd come to regret taking our singing voices for granted. We scoffed, and of course, he was absolutely right.

(Mick left us in 2016. He really did bring joy to our world).

Three decades of beer and tobacco have rendered my singing voice moot, and now I’m little more than an interpreter of songs, with the atonal wailings occurring well out of human earshot. Our cats suffer the most.

Imperfect pitch aside, the only Christmas songs I can even tolerate are the ones we sang in choir, and the only other one I truly enjoy is "Fairytale Of New York" by The Pogues, with a guest appearance by the late, lovely Kirsty McColl.

To repeat, I don't "do" Christmas ... but in spite of myself, the holiday occasionally provides a few pleasant memories -- even if, quoting Chico Marx, some things never change, and “There ain’t no sanity claus.”

Especially in New Gahania.

This year the lumps of coal are being personally wrapped by the snowman, Gauleiter Duggins, to be thrown through the windows of public housing residents who've inadvertently found themselves residing in the path of our mayoral dullard's petty ambitions.

That's why I won't be ending this year's holiday column on a pleasant note, for peak Scrooge is alive and well and inhabiting Jeff Gahan's well-fed and highly financed body.

For the sake of our city most vulnerable residents, let's hope the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come makes an appearance at Dear Leader's bunker -- although it won't do much good if Mike Hall comes out to greet him.

---

Recent columns:

December 14: A joyful noise? The six most-read ON THE AVENUES columns of 2018.

December 6: ON THE AVENUES: Straight tickets, unsociable media and whether Democrats should rally around Gahan's gallows pole.

November 29: ON THE AVENUES: "That's why I voted no," explains Scott Stewart, pausing to duck rocks feebly lobbed by Team Gahan's propaganda pygmies.

November 22: ON THE AVENUES: A few thanks to give before we return to our regular anti-anchor resistance programming.

Munich Tales 2018: Christmas markets are special in Germany, and so it looks like some mulled wine for us.

Marienplatz, Munich (photo credit).

Our first taste of a German (or in this specific instance, Bavarian) Christmas market came in 2009 in Bamberg.

A Christmas market, also known as Christkindlmarkt (literally: Baby Jesus Market), Christkindlesmarkt, Christkindlmarket, Christkindlimarkt, and Weihnachtsmarkt, is a street market associated with the celebration of Christmas during the four weeks of Advent. These markets originated in Germany, but are now being held in many other countries. The history of Christmas markets goes back to the Late Middle Ages in the German-speaking part of Europe, and in many parts of the former Holy Roman Empire that includes many eastern regions of France. The Christmas markets of Bautzen were first held in 1384. Dresden's Striezelmarkt was first held in 1434. Frankfurt was first mentioned in 1393, Munich in 1310, and Augsburg in 1498. In Austria, Vienna's "December market" can be considered a forerunner of Christmas markets and dates back to 1298.

In Bamberg we observed the endearing custom of ignoring the chilly weather and drinking outdoors at or near the Christmas market. Beer and spirits are available, but most of what we saw consumed was mulled wine, which we joined in partaking.

Now it is 2019, and we're off for Munich and a brief stop in Bamberg. Costs are reasonable for off-season travel, and in spite of my stated antipathy toward Christmas, it should be noted that it's very real -- except when it isn't.

The bulk of my annoyance is directed against the American way of celebrating the holiday, which otherwise might keenly interest an atheistic skeptic like me for any number of reasons pertaining to history, sociology, anthropology or beverage alcohol.

And food. Lots and lots of food.

Consequently, here come da social media Christmas market photos, along with any other items of interest for the next few days. Hit my Facebook page to see them. As usual, upon our return, I'll be backdating the blog with these images.

The Best Christmas Markets in Munich, by Evelyn Smallwood (The Culture Trip)

During Advent, Christmas markets in German city squares turn the magic right up. They are noticeably low on obnoxious music, with super-sweet Glühwein in plentiful supply, and strolling around looking for the perfect wooden ornament is a treat, no matter how cold the weather. Here are our favourite Christmas markets in the beautiful city of Munich.

This:

How Germany quietly cornered the Christmas market, by Kate Ferguson (Deutsche Welle)

Scented candles. Loose leaf tea? Forget hygge. Believe it or not, Germany has been quietly commodifying coziness for centuries

 ... Since the 14th century, Germany has been shamelessly promoting these seasonal delights in special zones known as Christmas markets. Best described as the economic nerve centers of festive cheer, they tend to be located in a town or city's central square, meaning heavy footfall is all but guaranteed.

Unlike hygge, weihnachtsstimmung has not been subjected to any form of backlash. In fact, cheap travel and the rise of globalization have caused the popularity of German-style Christmas markets to surge. These days, they can be found all over the world. From Beijing to Bangkok, the smell of roasted almonds and pine needles is prompting revelers to reach straight for their wallets ...

And, this.

ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2017 Remix).

ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2017 Remix).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

This column contains bits and pieces published previously in varying forms at various places. Each year, it functions as the blog's unified, omnibus Christmas utterance -- or, if  you will, a primal scream.

It happens each holiday season.

During an otherwise random conversation about sombrero-wearin' taco walkers, the uncanny tendency of local Democrats to experience tumescence whenever Jeff Gahan spits on the downtrodden, Dan Coffey's most recent "last ever" bribe, or even mere lumps of coal, eventually someone looks at me with palpable dismay.

“Roger, you’re such a Grinch.”

My response never varies.

“Thank you very much.”

The roots of my longstanding Yuletide antipathy might be traced to Freudian conceits, Jungian counter-thrusts, references to childhood toilet training habits or the sheer pervasiveness of psychological repression stemming from residency in a nakedly fascistic state like Indiana, but in truth, it’s far simpler.

It goes back to that original, defining moment in every American boy’s life – not when it becomes clear that he’ll die some day without the saving grace of being able to hit a curveball, but the sudden, gut-wrenching discovery that in spite of the shameless propaganda fed to us by adults, who’d assured us that excruciating behavioral self-regulation would be rewarded by a gaudily costumed fat man parking his tricked-out sleigh on the roof and descending the chimney, that nope, in the end, it was nothing more than a shameless ruse.

Then it hits you: Santa Claus doesn’t really exist.

At all.

Our house didn’t even have a chimney, and you’d think this would have made me suspicious, but I was oblivious. When the shameful day of infamy arrived and my school mate chided me -- “c’mon, don’t tell me you still believe in Santa?” -- I did much more than merely shake Santa’s grip, cold turkey, right there on the spot.

I irrevocably disavowed the whole contrived Christmas spectacle, because even at such a tender age, I could see the dominoes falling as the previously sacrosanct Santa myth vaporized in plain sight, because if the grownups could mislead us about Santa, where would it end?

They might also be fibbing about those other edicts demanding compliance and conformity, from the civic foundational edifices of religion, patriotism and obedience, to the commandment forbidding jaywalking.

The worst of it was sitting alone in my room, cross-legged on the cold tile floor, and experiencing the devastating frustration of knowing that I was far too young to properly drink my way through the rampant disappointment.

Santa’s unused cookies and milk were the best I could do, and then, as now, I udderly DETEST milk.

---

In 1991, at the age of 31, I spent Christmas in the city of Košice -- today located in sovereign Slovakia, which then comprised the easternmost lands of Czechoslovakia. It was the mid-point of a six-month stint teaching conversational English to doctors and nurses at the city’s main hospital, an experience made possible by the Cold War’s end.

In 2016, Santa brought the gadget to digitalize those
Košice slides from 1991-92. It's a goal for 2018.

Upon returning stateside in 1992, there was a brief break, and then I went back into the food and drink business, where I’ve been, left, and bizarrely remain, ever since (until someone pays me to leave, that is). Remind me to check my stocking for a money order, will you?

Grinch or not, the approach of the holiday season in Košice proved fascinating. With no Thanksgiving to serve as mile marker, few signs were evident that that Christmas was coming until the eve of St. Nicholas Day (December 6), when children scrubbed and polished their shoes, placing them on windowsills to be filled with candy and chocolate. Presumably, bad children would receive a bundle of twigs bound together for swatting their butts … as it should be.

In Communist times, the regime attempted to persuade the populace that a chap named Grandfather Frost brought these goodies, presumably on behalf of the benevolent leadership. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, back came Christmas trees and caroling in the streets, and while these were familiar to me, decorations didn't even begin to appear until the first part of December. I remarked to my uncomprehending students that they should contrive a holiday like Halloween to mark the true beginning of the shopping season.

Shopping season? It was quite ephemeral. Surely it’s different in 2017, but in 1991, only a few understated window displays were to be seen in shops, and high pressure, guilt-laced sales tactics were nowhere to be found.

However, one necessary seasonal item became ubiquitous during the week preceding Christmas. This was delicious carp, raised and fattened in farm ponds, not river bottoms, and brought to market in street-side barrels and oversized plastic tubs. Some buyers brought their own buckets to take the living fish home for a few days of further bathtub cleansing. Others had their purchase killed, weighed and wrapped on the spot.

Carp is the traditional Slovak meal for Christmas, accompanied by an array of special side dishes, and perhaps some steaming sauerkraut soup. There always was plenty of bottled lager, but the Christmas Eve toast in 1991 was chased with homemade peach brandy from a student’s village nearby: “To peace, health and a good harvest.”

---

Two or three lifetimes later, there was a second chance to be in Europe for Christmas. I hope it doesn’t prove to be the last.

In 2009, we stayed in a rental apartment in Bamberg, Germany, a mere stone's throw from the Fässla and Spezial breweries. With the requisite open-air Christmas market, mulled wine and naturalistic decorations, Franconia’s version of the Yuletide season was obvious without being garish.

The Grinch in me was shaken, if as yet unbowed.

On Christmas morning, we strolled through the Altstadt’s deserted streets and climbed Altenburg hill to the medieval castle, affording a sweeping view of the valley and Bamberg's dizzying number of church spires. Most businesses were closed, but pleasingly, some food and drink purveyors were open in a city blessedly free of the archaic blue laws still existing in purportedly secular Indiana, which until 2015 prevented alcohol from being served on Dec. 25 – a purely Christian holiday.

Clouds rolled overhead, and it was a bracing and exhilarating walk. Descending the commanding heights back to our riverside starting point, we passed the city museum in the old town hall astride the Regnitz and saw that the doors were open. Inside was a fine collection of 18th-century porcelain from Meissen, and one of 38 nativity scenes on display in and around Bamberg during the holiday season.

A reconnaissance of Ludwigstrasse's expanse revealed that Bamberg's Chinese restaurant owners are not as ambitious as metro Louisville's, with all three closed for the day. However, at the train station, the bakery and small grocery both were open, and I bought a handful of half-liter Schlenkerla Märzen lagers to accompany the evening's home cooked vegetable soup.

With no close friends in Bamberg, we kept ourselves company, having procured groceries and libations in advance. With bottles of Fässla in support, Christmas evening selections on the telly revealed a diverse Euro holiday tableau.

There was a Basque celebration from Bilbao, with crazy costumes, quasi-operatic tunes and the inexplicable, prehistoric language spoken by the world's first cod fishermen. The whole time, I kept expecting a Muse concert to break out.

We watched a performance in Salzburg of Mozart's The Magic Flute; snippets of a schlocky Bavarian idyll, rather like the Osmonds meeting Lawrence Welk, but in lederhösen and dirndls; and then a Berlin performance by Max Raab and the Hotel Palast Orchestra, a stagy society presence reminiscent of Joel Grey’s role in Cabaret.

Finally came City Lights, the not-so-silent masterpiece by Charlie Chaplin, without dialogue but featuring a musical soundtrack as a concession to new 1931 technology. The Little Tramp falls for a blind flower girl ... and meets a drunken millionaire along the way.

On the 26th, Café Abseits beckoned again, with a fine draft list of regional, seasonal Bockbier. Later, at Spezial, delightful Ochsenbrust in horseradish sauce with a dumpling was accompanied by several of the brewpub’s quintessential smoked lagers.

No, I don’t “do” Christmas.

On occasion, vague and ambiguous exceptions are allowed.

---

Through it all, music soothes the heretical breast, just so long as it isn't the pervasive and disgusting same-old-suspect soundtrack heard playing in every public place, beginning the day after Harvest Homecoming and lasting through January.

Each year I make a special effort to listen to a recording of "Ring Christmas Bells." As always, it reminds me of our high school choral director, Michael Neely, who warned us that later in our lives, we'd come to regret taking our singing voices for granted. We scoffed, and of course, he was absolutely right.

(Mick left us in 2016. He really did bring joy to our world).

Three decades of beer and tobacco have rendered my singing voice moot, and now I’m little more than an interpreter of songs, with the atonal wailings occurring well out of human earshot. Our three cats suffer the most.

Imperfect pitch aside, the only Christmas songs I can even tolerate are the ones we sang in choir, and the only other one I enjoy is "Fairytale Of New York" by The Pogues, with a guest appearance by the late, lovely Kirsty McColl.

To repeat, I don't "do" Christmas ... but in spite of myself, the holiday occasionally provides a few pleasant memories -- even if, quoting Chico Marx, some things never change, and “There ain’t no sanity claus.”

Especially in New Gahania.

This year the lumps of coal are being personally wrapped by the snowman, Gauleiter Duggins, to be thrown through the windows of public housing residents who've inadvertently found themselves residing in the path of our mayoral dullard's petty ambitions.

That's why I won't be ending this year's holiday column on a pleasant note, for peak Scrooge is alive and well and inhabiting Jeff Gahan's well-fed and highly financed body.

For the sake of our city most vulnerable residents, let's hope the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come makes an appearance on Eastridge Drive -- although it won't do much good if Mike Hall comes out to greet him.

---

Recent columns:

December 14: ON THE AVENUES: My Franz Ferdinand heritage trail, 30 years ago in Sarajevo.

December 7: ON THE AVENUES: Say goodbye to all that, and expect the bayonet.

November 30: ON THE AVENUES: The 29 most influential books in my life.

November 23: ON THE AVENUES: A few thanks to give before we return to our regular resistance programming.

ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2016).

ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2016).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

This column contains bits and pieces published previously in varying forms at various places. Each year, it functions as the blog's unified, omnibus Christmas utterance -- or, if  you will, a primal scream.

It happens each holiday season.

During an otherwise random conversation about bridge tolls, lumps of coal, the uncanny ability of Jeff Gahan to be wrong even when he's right, or nonsensical Trumpian apologetics, eventually someone looks at me with palpable dismay.

“Roger, you’re such a Grinch.”

My response never varies.

“Thank you very much.”

The roots of my longstanding Yuletide antipathy might be traced to Freudian conceits, Jungian counter-thrusts, references to childhood toilet training habits or the sheer pervasiveness of psychological repression stemming from residency in a nakedly fascistic state like Indiana, but in truth, it’s far simpler.

It goes back to that original, defining moment in every American boy’s life – not when it becomes clear that he’ll die some day without the saving grace of being able to hit a curveball, but the sudden, gut-wrenching discovery that in spite of the shameless propaganda fed to us by adults, who’d assured us that excruciating behavioral self-regulation would be rewarded by a gaudily costumed fat man parking his tricked-out sleigh on the roof and descending the chimney, that nope, in the end, it was nothing more than a shameless ruse.

Then it hits you: Santa Claus doesn’t really exist.

At all.

Our house didn’t even have a chimney, and you’d think this would have made me suspicious, but I was oblivious. When the shameful day of infamy arrived and my chum chided me -- “c’mon, don’t tell me you still believe in Santa?” -- I did much more than merely shake Santa’s grip, cold turkey, right there on the spot.

I irrevocably disavowed the whole contrived Christmas spectacle, because even at such a tender age, I could see the dominoes falling as the previously sacrosanct Santa myth vaporized in plain sight, because if the grownups could mislead us about Santa, where would it end?

They might also be fibbing about those other edicts demanding compliance and conformity, from the civic foundational edifices of religion, patriotism and obedience, to the commandment forbidding jaywalking.

The worst of it was sitting alone in my room, cross-legged on the cold tile floor, and experiencing the devastating frustration of knowing that I was far too young to properly drink my way through the rampant disappointment.

Santa’s unused cookies and milk were the best I could do, and then, as now, I udderly DETEST milk.

---

In 1991, at the age of 31, I spent Christmas in the city of Kosice -- today located in sovereign Slovakia, which then comprised the easternmost lands of Czechoslovakia. It was the mid-point of a six-month stint teaching conversational English to doctors and nurses at the city’s main hospital, an experience made possible by the Cold War’s end.

In 2016, Santa will bring the gadget to digitalize those Kosice slides?

Upon returning stateside in 1992, there was a brief break, and then I went back into the food and drink business, where I’ve been, left, and remain, ever since (until someone pays me to leave, that is).

Remind me to check my stocking for a money order, will you?

Grinch or not, the approach of the holiday season in Kosice proved fascinating. With no Thanksgiving to serve as mile marker, few signs were evident that that Christmas was coming until the eve of St. Nicholas Day (December 6), when children scrubbed and polished their shoes, placing them on windowsills to be filled with candy and chocolate. Presumably, bad children would receive a bundle of twigs bound together for swatting their butts … as it should be.

In Communist times, the regime attempted to persuade the populace that a chap named Grandfather Frost brought these goodies, presumably on behalf of the benevolent leadership. After the Velvet Revolution in 1989, back came Christmas trees and caroling in the streets, and while these were familiar to me, decorations didn't even begin to appear until the first part of December. I remarked to my uncomprehending students that they should contrive a holiday like Halloween to mark the true beginning of the shopping season.

Shopping season? It was quite ephemeral. Surely it’s different in 2016, but in 1991, only a few understated window displays were to be seen in shops, and high pressure, guilt-laced sales tactics were nowhere to be found.

However, one necessary seasonal item became ubiquitous during the week preceding Christmas. This was carp, raised and fattened in farm ponds, not river bottoms, and brought to market in street-side barrels and oversized plastic tubs. Some buyers brought their own buckets to take the living fish home for a few days of further bathtub cleansing. Others had their purchase killed, weighed and wrapped on the spot.

Carp is the traditional Slovak meal for Christmas, accompanied by an array of special side dishes, and perhaps some steaming sauerkraut soup. There always was plenty of bottled lager, but the Christmas Eve toast in 1991 was chased with homemade peach brandy from a student’s village nearby: “To peace, health and a good harvest.”

---

Two or three lifetimes later, there was a second chance to be in Europe for Christmas. I hope it doesn’t prove to be the last.

In 2009, we stayed in a rental apartment in Bamberg, Germany, a mere stone's throw from the Fässla and Spezial breweries. With the requisite open-air Christmas market, mulled wine and naturalistic decorations, Franconia’s version of the Yuletide season was obvious without being garish. The Grinch in me was shaken, if as yet unbowed.

On Christmas morning, we strolled through the Altstadt’s deserted streets and climbed Altenburg hill to the medieval castle, affording a sweeping view of the valley and Bamberg's dizzying number of church spires. Most businesses were closed, but pleasingly, some food and drink purveyors were open in a city blessedly free of the archaic blue laws still existing in purportedly secular Indiana, which until 2015 prevented alcohol from being served on Dec. 25 – a purely Christian holiday.

Clouds rolled overhead, and it was a bracing and exhilarating walk. Descending the commanding heights back to our riverside starting point, we passed the city museum in the old town hall astride the Regnitz and saw that the doors were open. Inside was a fine collection of 18th century Porcelain from Meissen, and one of 38 nativity scenes on display in and around Bamberg during the holiday season.

A reconnaissance of Ludwigstrasse's expanse revealed that Bamberg's Chinese restaurant owners are not as ambitious as metro Louisville's, with all three closed for the day. However, at the train station, the bakery and small grocery both were open, and I bought a handful of half-liter Schlenkerla Märzen lagers to accompany the evening's home cooked vegetable soup.

With no close friends in Bamberg, we kept ourselves company, having procured groceries and libations in advance. With bottles of Fässla in support, Christmas evening selections on the telly revealed a diverse Euro holiday tableau.

There was a Basque celebration from Bilbao, with crazy costumes, quasi-operatic tunes and the inexplicable, pre-historic language spoken by the world's first cod fishermen. The whole time, I kept expecting a Muse concert to break out.

We watched a performance in Salzburg of Mozart's "The Magic Flute”; snippets of a schlocky Bavarian idyll, rather like the Osmonds meeting Lawrence Welk, but in lederhösen and dirndls; and then a Berlin performance by Max Raab and the Hotel Palast Orchestra, a stagy society presence reminiscent of Joel Grey’s role in "Cabaret."

Finally came "City Lights," the not-so-silent masterpiece by Charlie Chaplin, without dialogue but featuring a musical soundtrack as a concession to new 1931 technology. The Little Tramp falls for a blind flower girl ... and meets a drunken millionaire along the way.

On the 26th, Café Abseits beckoned again, with a fine draft list of regional, seasonal Bockbier. Later, at Spezial, delightful Ochsenbrust in horseradish sauce with a dumpling was accompanied by several of the brewpub’s quintessential smoked lagers.

I don’t “do” Christmas.

On occasion, exceptions are allowed.

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Through it all, music soothes the heretical breast, just so long as it isn't the pervasive and disgusting same-old-suspect soundtrack heard playing in every public place, beginning the day after Harvest Homecoming and lasting through January.

Each year I make a special effort to listen to a recording of "Ring Christmas Bells." As always, it reminds me of our high school choral director, Michael Neely, who warned us that later in our lives, we'd come to regret taking our singing voices for granted. We scoffed, and of course, he was absolutely right.

(Mick left us a few weeks back. He really did bring joy to our world).

Three decades of beer and tobacco have rendered my singing voice moot, and now I’m little more than an interpreter of songs, with the atonal wailings occurring well out of human earshot. Our three cats suffer the most.

Imperfect pitch aside, the only Christmas songs I can even tolerate are the ones we sang in choir, and the only other one I enjoy is "Fairytale Of New York" by The Pogues, with a guest appearance by the late, lovely Kirsty McColl.

I don't "do" Christmas ... but in spite of myself, the holiday occasionally provides a few pleasant memories -- even if, quoting Chico Marx, some things never change, and “There ain’t no sanity claus.”

Especially in New Gahania.

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Recent columns:

December 8: ON THE AVENUES: It’s never too late to beer all over again.

December 1: ON THE AVENUES: Once more with feeling, because as the notable American philosopher Moe Bandy once sang, “Here I am, drunk again.”

November 17 and 24: (BYE WEEKS, literally and figuratively)

November 11: ON THE AVENUES: Kind-a full-a you know what, but now we're going to find out whether Jeff Gahan has any cattle under his hat.