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2023/2024 Merry Christmas/Happy New Year: Santana ABRAXAS, Version 10
Steve Gallanter’s Blog: https://stevegallanter.wordpress.com
is a modest enterprise. I usually send out about 40 or so Facebook copies and another 20 email copies of brain candy with the occasional response from a friend being more than welcome as were the pass alongs which on 2 occasions reconnected me with folks from the past.
In April 2014 I began tweeting and my number of views exploded to about 200 altogether.
Oh joy!
...But wait there’s more…
I am both absurdly proud and humbled by the 1217 visitors this brain candy dispensary has tallied so far in 2023.
When the Christmas 2013 blog was passed along quite a bit it broke into the Top 5 of my Google search.
Most gratifying were several comments along the lines of “Thank you for this acknowledgement of a personal Christmas tradition, as I too have one.”
I responded to all of these comments gladly. I was pleasantly taken aback at the number and intensity of these very private traditions and their importance to their adherents.
One gentleman took the time to send a message about his private tradition of chewing Trident spearmint gum after Christmas dinner as his now gone father had.
The last 10 years have brought thoughts of other Christmases to mind as my memory bank is thankfully still accepting deposits. Indeed, this blog has precipitated thoughts of Christmases past to the extent that a 2023/2024 addition is appropriate.
Keeping the faith is part of Christmas and the promise of a New Year is always uplifting even as the holiday transforms.
Christmas cards have largely been supplanted by a virtual blizzard of social media greetings.
Black Friday’s throng of shoppers have seen their number diminished by Cyber Monday’s ever increasing bandwidth and deliveries.
Indeed, grand-parenting, retirement, disability, estrangement and relocation change Christmas more with every passing year.
Still the Christmas spirit is till in my heart and those of many others…
In that spirit I am sending:
Merry Christmas: Santana ABRAXAS
Merry Christmas/New Year 2023/2024
Christmas is a time when we, even those of us who do not share in the religious meaning of the holiday, each have our own meaning for this day.
Santana’s ABRAXAS LP signifies Christmas for me.
I bought ABRAXAS for my Mom for Christmas 1970. Mom, Peter and I had seen WOODSTOCK and Mom was mightily impressed with Mike Shrieve’s epic drum solo on “Soul Sacrifice”. While Mom always tried a little too hard to like what I liked her enthusiasm was more than sincere.
I saved my .75 a week allowance, pestered Dad for money and raked some leaves to conjure up the $3.49 to buy the LP at Port Chemists.
(I gave Dad innumerable promotional packs of aftershave and Borkum Riff pipe tobacco. My brother Peter got Johnny Lightning 500 while I received several slot cars and Joe Paterno’s FOOTBALL MY WAY from Dad, a Penn. State grad.
It was my first “adult” gift-giving.
In 1970 I was 12. It was to be my last boyhood Christmas.
Turkey, homemade cranberry sauce, (my Mom never, ever served that jellied, canned..uh.. stuff), and visits from neighborhood kids fulfilled every expectation.
Mom was surprised and delighted with ABRAXAS even with its “dirty” cover. It played endlessly on the turntable of the Gallanter household’s Harman-Kardon Turntable, AM-FM Stereo with Recording Cassette Compact Stereo.
(Dad was quick to nudge me as a way of reminding me that he had purchased the stereo and had paid me to rake leaves. On this Christmas I actually found this habit of his endearing).
Christmas 1970 was to be the last Christmas of our family as a unit although neither Mom, Dad, Peter or myself knew so at the time.
1971’s Christmas crystallized the cataclysmic changes, voluntary AND involuntary, familial AND cultural, well-intended AND malicious that would sweep through the lives of Mom, Dad, Peter and myself.
Christmas 1971 couldn’t have all of us in the same room for any length of time. I brought ABRAXAS to our North Shore Unitarian Universalist Congregation’s Jr. High room where I played ABRAXAS through headphones repeatedly to the puzzlement of the folks I willfully disregarded.
Headphones were clamped over my head as the congas of “Oye Como Va” reverberated.
“When Steven doesn’t talk, he really doesn’t talk,” I overheard one girl mention as I re-cued ABRAXAS.
Hostility was assumed to be my motivation, and not one completely inaccurate, but astral projection back to 1970 was the guiding star. It was still my Mom’s LP but she was caught up in her own affairs and didn’t notice it missing. Dad lived in Forest Hills, Queens as the divorce was now final.
(I remember looking at a snapshot of Christmas 1962 in our home at 86 Henry St, Merrick, Long Island. There is a tower of blocks in front of me wearing a devilish grin with my Mom kneeling beside me with a bemused expression. I remember kicking the blocks over. 1962 is my earliest Christmas memory).
For several years I continued to play ABRAXAS at Christmas. Most memorably in 1975 when my Mom returned home from a hospitalization and I wanted to comfort her. ABRAXAS proved to be more curative than the turkey I attempted to cook with tomato soup flavored stuffing).
By 1973 I was not speaking to my Dad, an estrangement that lasted more than 3 years. ABRAXAS’ “Oye Como Va” reminded me of the photo of Mom and Dad celebrating their 1st. anniversary with a grinning Tito Puente, the author of the original “Oye Como Va,” at the Palladium in Manhattan, where my paternal grandfather worked.
ABRAXAS signified Dad as well as Mom and the paternal grandparents who posed with me on their laps but who I have no memories of.
The summers of 1974,1975 and 1976 found me at Rowe Unitarian Universalist Camp and Conference Center. ABRAXAS was in the ‘Radio Rowe’ LP pile for the public address system that broadcast on a loud, sporadic basis throughout the camp. Santana was very popular with my brother and sister campers although they would have been taken aback, to say the least, at the talisman it was to me.
Boston gained me as a resident in 1978. I left ABRAXAS with Mom. I played it upon my early Christmas sojourns to the ancestral home.
In 1981 a group of we Port Washingtonians had a Christmas celebration at the New York, New York discotheque in Manhattan. Mom remarked that the percussion of much disco reminded her of ABRAXAS. The next day I played the now battered LP. Upon hitching back to Boston I purchased a used copy at Looney Tunes Used Records.
1982 brought the realization that college graduation was beyond my capability. At home in Port Washington I put on ABRAXAS to please Mom before disappointing her.
By 1984 my Dad had passed. Yes, “Oye Como Va” reminded me that once upon a time Dad and Mom were deeply in love and Peter and I were fortunate to be the offspring of their union. I have no recollection of my grandparents on either side but ABRAXAS is a talisman of their lives causing mine.
10 years pass. ABRAXAS PLAYS annually on my Panasonic Plus Cassette-to-Cassette AM/FM with Auto Reverse boom box.
1995 found my brother Peter and I at odds to the extent that I spent Christmas in Boston brooding ambivalently although I did send presents to Peter, his wife Aida and Mom.
I consoled myself with ABRAXAS “Hope You’re Feeling Better”s theme of ambivalence powered by congas and Carlos Santana’s wah-wah guitar pyrotechnics.
2022’s first week has made “Hope You’re Feeling Better” a talisman of COVID even more than “Oye Como Va.”
“Is that you
Your eyes slowly fading?
Is that you
Your mind full of tears?
Is that you
Searching for a good time?
Is that you
Waiting for all these years?
Is that you?
Look across the ocean
And I hope you’re feeling better.”
https://youtu.be/P_vJBz2_LtE
The clever wordplay of shifting from the declarative voice to the interrogative voice is the kind of lyrical daring do that seems to have vanished, along with the presence of rock music in general.
But make no mistake; “Hope You’re Feeling better” is perhaps Greg Rolie’s finest vocals on ABRAXAS. The questing baritone being cut off by the fiery pyrotechnics of Carole Santana’s wah-wah wailing is a metaphor that is far more descriptive than any printed lyric can give voice to.
ABRAXAS is definitely the gift that keeps on giving.
The repeated playing of “Hope You’re Feeling Better” is an uplift in much the same way as “Oye Como Va.”
…Indeed, the ambivalent holiday of 1995 seeped to mind…
Being well into my 30’s in 1995 I had made my own Christmas tradition of surprising someone that I liked with a gift that spoke to an affection that had not been fully expressed. Being single, childless and employed in an industry that throws folks together and throws them away with equal speed I had learned that small blessings are sometimes the only blessings one can receive but that can be a good thing.
…I was sitting on the living room floor of 24 Haviland St, Apt. 28 at about 9 P.M. 2 days before Christmas wrapping up 2 gifts while ABRAXAS played through the open door of my bedroom. My roommate was out of the country for the holidays so I felt little compunction about playing my music a tad louder than I might have otherwise.
I was wrapping 2 gifts for a former co-worker. Patricia was a beautiful woman who had tended bar at the same venue as I. Although it had been a brief and occasional job for her the chit-chat of the time when I was an afternoon employee at that venue had crossed over to more chit-chat when we briefly worked the same bar.
Patricia was in the midst of several transitions in her life and I was taken aback, although pleased, when she asked me to call her.
Over the course of more than a year these calls became more frequent and more intimate and I found myself listening more than I spoke. Certainly, I was flattered to be trusted but more than that I trusted her with the pure aspects of my heart that had become very distant.
Pure and impure thoughts mingled, as Patricia was a beauty.
I was thinking about how to finesse a meeting with Patricia so as to give her both of her gifts. One was a sardonic look at the recent past while the other was a light unto what was to come.
The phone rang, landlines had only begun too cede their domain to pagers, and it was Patricia.
“…Steve, I am at the bar. I have a present for you. Where do you live?”
“I have 2 presents for you. I live 25 yards away I’ll be there in 5 minutes,” I replied. My heart did a full-gainer. Steeling myself I managed to wind some Scotch tape around my gifts and jetted out the door to the bar.
Patricia was by the pay phone smiling.
I ordered drinks, we took a booth and we spoke briefly of the joy and relief of having finished Christmas shopping.
“What did you get me,” she asked with the slightly turned head that moved my eyes and heart.
I gave her the 1st. package and she ripped off the wrapping with an urgency that was enthralling. Laughing out loud she proclaimed, “I don’t know what I would ever use this for!”
“I know, that’s why I got it for you!”
I slid the other gift over the booth’s table when the owner of the bar came by to shake my hand and wish me a Merry Christmas.
I thanked him and introduced Patricia who also wished him a Merry Christmas.
“You know him?”
“I’ve been coming here since 1979,” I offered while wondering what Patricia might think of my recreational habits.
Patricia unwrapped the second gift and plugged it into a socket. She smiled a closed mouthed gesture of gratitude while nodding slowly in a way that signaled that all was right in the world if for only this moment.
“C’mon open your present.”
I opened Patricia’s package to find a mustard colored turtleneck that would undoubtedly be a good fit underneath a leather jacket for Boston’s winters.
I blinked involuntarily and held her hands briefly.
“Hey, do you think that the Prudential Mall is still open?”
“If there is any night of the year when it would be open late tonight would be that night.”
“Let’s go, we can leave the stuff in my car.”
My mind was pondering whether this meeting was a gesture of sympathy for being estranged from my family, gratitude for being a shoulder to cry on or just because Patricia was a good kid…or something more.
We walked the 200 or so yards to the Prudential Mall and after determining that indeed the stores had closed at 9, walked back to the car and I removed my gift.
We hugged.
Patricia got into her car.
I returned to my apartment…
1997 found Mom in a nursing home for the final phase of her life. I bought her a new Walkman with ABRAXAS poised to play. She was delighted.
1999 found Mom receiving a Discman. The first CD…? Yes, she remembered.
2004 brought the end of Mom’s life. On that Christmas I played ABRAXAS at 2 AM in the living room of 42 North Bayles Ave, Port Washington on my Discman in a private memorial to Mom.
2013 found my now gone friend Steve Boisson offering that he had “never thought of Santana as Christmas music” while offering blues artist Charles Brown as his own eccentric Yuletide troubadour.
2019 found me in brother Peter’s place in Port Washington, N.Y. the night after Christmas patting my protruding tummy and nursing a straight up Jameson.
Peter’s television was displaying a vivacious Latina declaiming the weather.
“That’s Audrey Puentes. Her father is Tito Puentes,” Peter offered.
“Hmmm..,” I said to myself.
My grandmother Marie Jack, biologically my Mom’s stepmom, gifted me a Christmas ornament featuring 2 cardinals in a gilded cage in, I believe 1973. It never occurred to me at the time that I would never see Marie again although the passage of time and circumstances eventually made this reality evident. From 1997 to 2017 I brought the ornament to the ancestral home for the talismanic Christmas tree. In 2017 I neglected to bring it home but Aida was good enough to rescue the birds as they nestled in my rolling case for the Greyhound to Boston.
Much to my sadness the fragile frame of the cage was twisted in transit and my efforts to restore it fell short. However, it is intact, if a little twisted, and resides next to Aunt Goldie’s sock monkey as ABRAXAS plays.
Our decade has brought the passage from this world and from my life of more than several folks; Martha Shaw among them, and places. Looney Tunes records, where I purchased my Santana ABRAXAS CD has been gone since 2012; likewise T.C’s Lounge, with local watering holes and record stores right up there, or down there, with trilobites as fossils.
ABRAXAS keeps record stores and Christmas alive at one and the same time as this mind contemplates Christmas 2022 and the New Year of 2023.
To all those folks both present and absent I humbly offer,
“Oye Como Va.”
ABRAXAS signifies Christmas; calling out to heart the folks who have passed, friends who are missed, places that are gone and the phases of the Christmases past, present and future.
ABRAXAS is a talisman as real as a rock, in LP, cassette, CD and YouTube formats that holds in its notes the presents, love, tears and hopes of Christmas every time I so much as touch it.
I am listening to it right now.
“Oye Como Va”
“Hope You’re Feeling Better”
!Merry Christmas!
!Happy New Year!
TIPS FOR SERVERS #2: Ordering…
“We’re ready
to order.
Now what do we want?”
…Sigh…
HAIKU 5*7*5: Beer
I sold my first beer
1977
It was cold and clear
At this time of year in 1977 I served my first adult beverage at Nassau Coliseum while working for Harry M. Stevens, the concession provider at that time.
Harry M. Stevens was bought by Aramark, the concessionaire and minority owner of the Red Sox, for whom I worked in 2002.
In 1977 Nassau Coliseum was home to the NHL N.Y. Islanders and the NBA Nets in the Nets’ sole Nassau Coliseum season in the NBA.
Being a beer vendor was about as good a gig as I was going to get at that point in my life. I was attending Nassau Community College as a Liberal Arts major. After my classes I would do my homework in the ‘stack’ room of the library where Mrs. McCarthy allowed me to work. Following the completion of my day’s work I would go to the cafeteria where leftover chef’s salads were sold for $1.50 and then stride over the parking lot to the Coliseum for the evenings’ game.
After the game I would hitchhike back to my home of Port Washington.
Bartending vs. Serving: Taste and compare.
How to get the job
–Bartender: Apply for management
–Server: Apply for bartender
Social status
-Bartender: Impresses friends under 30
–Server: Impresses guests over 30
Work status
-Bartender: Token
–Server: Token
Nickname
–Bartender: Joe Genius
–Server: Steve
Kicks
–Bartender: Adidas Dual Threat
–Server: Dr. Scholl ‘s Work with cushion heel
Socks
–Bartender: Thick
–Server: Thicker
Walking
–Bartender: Side-to-side like zone defense in basketball
-Server: Heel to toe race walking
Terra firma
–Bartender: Perforated rubber mat
–Server: Stone floor
Pants
Bartender: Tactical cargo shorts
-Server: Polyester dress slacks
Top
–Bartender: Muscle, theme and promo T’s
–Server: Company issued
Hair care products
–Bartender: TRESemmes spray gel
–Server: Water
Hydration
–Bartender: Iced tea with club soda and 4 lime wedges
–Server: Iced tea with club soda and 4 lime wedges
Nutrition
–Bartender: 16 oz. milk with CVS whey protein
–Server: 16 oz. milk with CVS whey protein
CVS
–Bartender: Across the street
–Server: Around the corner
Local attraction
–Bartender: Fenway Park
–Server: Theater District plays and shows
Sports metaphor
–Bartender: Bar/MLB, dance club/NFL
–Server: NBA
Weight
–Bartender: 176ish
–Server: 168ish
Aches and pains
–Bartender: Broken fingers, bruised knees
–Server: Callused insteps, sore arches
Job security
–Bartender: “Job security of an ice cube.”
–Server: Always understaffed so relatively secure for servers with 5+ shift availability
Sex
–Bartender: Yes
–Server: Overhear 2nd. dates and date nights chit-chat at tables
Music
–Bartender: Every genre imaginable
–Server: J. Trap; 45 minute loop
Career move
–Bartender: Management
–Server: Bartender
Income
–Bartender: $$$ now
–Server: Next day deposit to debit card
Guest payments
–Bartender: $$$ now
–Server: $$$, credit cards, Up n Go via phone, credit cards
Guests’ bad habits
–Bartender: “Make it strong.”
–Server: “Is there a charge for extra meat?”
Co-worker bad habits
–Bartender: Barback sitting down playing Candy Crush while you stock beer
–Server: Servers sitting down texting while you stock ice
Alcohol
–Bartender: Lots
–Server: Specialty cocktails
Food
–Bartender: $1 Honey cashews from vending machine
–Server: Pan-Asian cuisine with entrees up to $36
Management style
–Bartender: Personal and direct from G.M. and Asst. Mgr.
–Server: Corporate from as many as 4 managers
Future?
–Bartender: 2+ years ago in the rear view mirror
–Server: Bring on 2023
PASSING: Jack Hague, 1949-2022
On Saturday, June 18th; I attended the memorial reception for my boss at Our House and Our House East, Jack Hague.
I first met Jack at Our House in July of 1982…!?!…
I was working at the Landmark Cafe in Quincy Market 2-3 days and 2-3 nights as a waiter, before the current coinage of “server,” and then jumping on the B Line to 1277 Comm. Ave. Allston. This worked for me as the late wait shift at Our House began at 6 P.M.
It was my 2nd or 3rd shift…
Jack was a short guy cooking in short shorts.
This is how we met….
The late waiter’s shift involved taking the chafing dish which contained the buffet from Table 10 into the kitchen, emptying any leftovers and dismantling it for the dishwasher.
“Hey..uh..you.”
“My name is Steve.”
Jack inspected the remnants of the meatballs.
“Steve, you can eat these if you like.”
“I ate at work.”
“You can wrap these up to take home.”
“Actually, I’m a vegetarian.”
“Vegetarians can eat these meatballs.”
I laughed so hard snot bubbled from my nose.
…Jack Hague…
HAIKU 5*7*5* Beer
I sold my first beer
1977
It was cold and clear
STEVEN GALLANTER: BARTENDER RESUME’
Steven Gallanter
15 Edgerly Rd, Apt. 8
Boston, MA 02115
617-835-2373
stevegallanter@yahoo.com
BARTENDER
Summary of Qualifications
BEVERAGE SKILLS
-Remixologist
-Unsupervised bartender with access to premise
-Uncork wine and champagne with appropriate protocol
-Formulate drink specials
-Tend bar for African, Brazilian, EDM, Eurohaus, Greek, International, Latin, alternative lifestyle, rock, swing, Broadway, Country & Western, disco, karaoke, house, hip-hop, oldies, reggae, R & B, classical and Top 40
FOOD SERVICE SKILLS
-serve pan-Asian cuisine
-Arm and tray service at bar and tables
-Plating and garnishing
-Inform guests of specials
-Food service with appropriate protocol
GUEST SERVICE SKILLS
-Guest list privileges and table reservations
-Provide guest with personal care items
-Suggest dining, tourism and entertainment options
-Assist challenged guests
PROMOTIONAL AND MARKETING SKILLS
-Collect contact information for promotional purposes
-Obtain complimentary bar supplies from salespeople
-Decorate premises for seasonal events
-Distribute promotional material to authorized outlets
PLANT, EQUIPMENT AND LEGAL SKILLS
-Troubleshooting of soda, refrigeration and HVAC systems
-Diagnosed need for water filtration system for soda and ice systems
-Reconfigured storage to conform to requirements
-Photographed grounds to successfully appeal violations to Boston Board of Inspectional Services
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
-Aloha, Micros, PosiTouch 6.36 POS systems
CERTIFICATION
-CPR, First Aid and Emergency Oxygen, American Safety & Health Institute, 2015
CERTIFICATION
MA Dept. of Fire Services, Crowd Manager Training, 2018
COMMUNITY
Boston Board of Elections, Warden and Clerk,
2002-2008, 2010-2024
BAR EXPERIENCE
P.F. CHANG’S
Bar/server
2022-current
MACHINE
2010-2020
DURGIN-PARK
2012
NEWS BOSTON
2008-2009
RED FEZ
2007
EUROPA
2001-2006
FENWAY/ARAMARK
2002
RITZ-CARLTON, ARLINGTON ST.
2001
-71.058880
HAIKU 5*7*5* Fruit flies and baseball.
Red Sox hit pop flies
A sign of Opening Day
Sugar brings fruit flies
Baseball and fruit flies both have the lifespan of the equinox.
TIPS FOR BARTENDERS: #3 Job security
“Bartenders have the job security of ice cubes.
You’re going to get swallowed,
crushed,
melted,
liquefied,
or just go down the drain.”
Noel Perez, Europa, General Manager/Partner
HAIKU 5*7*5* Machine Demolition
I’ll sip a few beers
The Machine demolition
I’ll just sip my tears
Steve Gallanter's Blog 