Santa Rampage

I do not live in the world of sobriety.
-- Oliver Reed

Friday, December 1, 2000
One year ago: A Long Drive

At lunchtime I drove over to Costco, to get candy to distribute to people during tonight's Santa Rampage. I thought I was there early enough to avoid the crowds, but no such luck! The place was packed. They had no big bags of peppermints, which is what I wanted, but I made do with Hershey Miniatures, Hershey Kisses, and a big "variety pack".

Jack called -- there's a change of plans for this weekend, and some bad news. He originally planned to come down Saturday and visit me with his younger daughter H----. But she's got mono! What a shame. Plus, his older daughter was picked up by the police in Seattle -- he didn't find out about this until she was in the Bellingham Jail. They should have notified him! The parole officer was angry about this. So Jack wanted to stay in town, so he could go visit her in the lockup. I'll go up to see him tomorrow.

He said the hearing was pretty bad. He refused to go bail for her, since he has no confidence in her abiding by any restrictions the judge might put on her. She'll get a formal hearing next week. She's in trouble for breaking parole, and she keeps breaking parole! So this seems like it could be a never-ending process.

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I got home in time to do some repairs on my santa totem stick. I didn't even have to dig deep to find my glue gun! I grabbed a snack of tortilla chips, then took the bus downtown.

I needn't have worried about being late -- I was the first santa at the Nitelite lounge. My brother-in-law and a friend of his were there, quite by coincidence. I said hi to them, then decided to go back out down the block where I'd seen the fire-eaters. I'd heard these folks were going to be joining the group. But only one person in the crowd had a santa hat on. They were just finished and a crowd had walked into the art gallery, so I started asking folks if they'd been naughty, and handing out the candy. When I was certain there were no santas lurking, I walked back to the bar.

Slowly but surely, the place filled up with Santas. There were some of the same folks propping up the bar that I'd seen last year! There were santas in corsets, pimp santas in red leather cowboy hats, and elves, along with regulation santas, and a few reindeer. One Santa said she'd been reading my journal, after I introduced myself as Santa Anita. We had a reporter and photographer tagging along, but we forced them to don some borrowed santa gear. "No Civilians!"

People were drinking and milling around. When the back room emptied out, we moved back there. Ashley, an old cacophony friend, was the closest we had to an organizer, but he wasn't the boss of this evening -- nobody was! We were waiting for Wally, I think. No one wanted to leave for our next stop until he showed up.

Finally he arrived, in a sequined suit. "Oriental trading company!" he cried.

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I'd negotiated ahead of time for a group rate at a swing dance being held at the IBEW union hall, at the other end of Belltown. But we had many stops to make before we got there. We dashed into an art opening, then the Rendezvous lounge. At each stop, people wanted to get drinks, but there were those in the group that wanted to keep moving. It was cat-herding at its finest. After a stop at Kelley's bar (some sad characters there), we arrived at the Sit'n'Spin, a combination bar, cafe, and laundramat. The santas dashed into the back room and started dancing their asses off. Unfortunately, the band was just rehearsing, and the santas were ejected in short order.

We were just a few blocks from the Speakeasy, which is an espresso place, with beer, internet cafe, and a performance space in the back. (At last, an internet cafe that includes coffee!) This is Jessamyn's workplace, though she works from home most of the time. We burst in and distributed candy, then starting downing pitchers. Lots of chanting: "Ho! Ho! Ho! Ho!" The management started getting concerned because there was supposed to be sketch comedy going on in the back room, and sketch comedy artists don't take kindly to freelance weirdness coming from the audience, or loud chanting floating into their space. Management also claimed that we were diverting possible audience members from getting back to the performance space.

So we left, but not before the fire-eaters did their thing. That lamp oil or kerosene just can't be good for you! But no one got set on fire, and the rambunctious santas looking on were restrained from jumping into the act. Some santas were already getting pretty drunk, and others I think were faking it (or were outrageously cheap drunks!).

I'd floated this dance invasion earlier, and I thought that this would be a good time to get there. But when we were a few blocks away, some santas felt that ten minutes without a beverage was as long as they could hold out -- "Santa needs a drink!" And they peeled off to the five point cafe. I felt I should just go with the group mind!

What I didn't realize was that a smaller group of santas who'd been left at one of our stops thought we were still headed to the union hall. They walked over there and burst in to the USO-themed dance. I heard later from one of the dancers there: "I could smell the liquor on them!" One santa, wearing red battle armor, placed his two hands on either side of one young girl's face. "Such soft skin. That's what Santa likes!"

But I was already at the Five point cafe. I think the santas had had such a good time there last year (during part of the rampage when I wasn't around) that they were drawn there as if by a magnet. The group that had split off found us again. "We couldn't find the dance you were talking about, but we found some sort of Navy dance so we just crashed that!" I spend most of our time at the five point outside, since it was cooler, and I wasn't drinking. I talked to the reporter, and chatted with the elf band (sousaphone, two saxes, a trombone and violin were accompanying us). One santa came out and sat on a bollard -- "Where am I? I love you guys..."

When the santas rolled out of the bar, they opted to go to the strip club over on Denny. (Turned out they never went in there -- the cover was too high. Santa is cheap!) I decided to abort the mission at this point, and go over to the dance and actually dance. I said goodnight to Ashley, Jessamyn, and Wally, and wandered off.

The newspaper that covered us was the strike paper, the Seattle Union Record. We got good coverage! Plus more good pictures here from kerrie klaus.

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I found the IBEW hall. I realized that I'd been there once before, but not for a dance! When I was on strike back in the early nineties, I think a few of us showed up at a Christine Gregoire fundraiser to ask for her support (not that that helped us at all -- we lost the strike.) It's an interesting place, with a thirties streamlined look to it. The dance was still going strong, with lots of folks in retro clothing or old uniforms, to go with the USO theme. I got about an hour or so of dancing in. The band, John Holte's Radio Rhythm Orchestra, sounded better than I'd remembered it.

I asked Earl if he could give me a ride home. I understood that this was conditional on whether folks went to Las Pampas afterwards. When the dance was over, I was sitting and waiting while a few diehards danced to a CD. Turns out he forgot to tell me when the decision on the latenight action had been made! He felt bad, but it was OK.

I walked towards downtown, feeling like some character out of Guys and Dolls on the empty, damp sidewalk. I thought about hailing a cab, but felt oddly shy. I made it to the bus stop and caught the last number 10 of the night.