Jonathots Daily Blog
(2093)
Just because you can doesn’t mean you should–and also, just because you shouldn’t have, doesn’t require that you spend a whole lot of time regretting.
That’s life.
This comes to my mind as I remember the Christmas 2000, when I convinced myself to open up a store for the holiday season. My daughter-in-law, Angy, was anxious to attempt a business project and I was in my usual adventurous state of mind to comply. We called it The Clazzy Christmas Store in honor of a CD recently put out by Janet and myself, loaded with music of the season.
We immediately ran into two problems: the amount of money we were able to afford to rent a commercial space in a shopping mall was not sufficient to acquire property in a successful, ongoing avenue. No, our funding only allowed for us to rent this type of facility in a mall which was dying out due to lack of interest, with quite limited foot traffic.
Secondly … well, we had no idea what we were doing.
Perhaps if this idea had been placed in a locale other than Outer Mongolia and staffed by leadership which had at least read an article on opening up new business, it might have prospered immensely. But because it was in a commercial environment that would have been well-suited to a tribe of monks, it was necessary for us to create a stir and generate publicity by offering incentives which we thought would stimulate commerce.
- So we hired a good Santa Claus, who alternated wearing both a red suit and a white suit. Unique.
- We had parades through the parking lot to draw attention to ourselves and increase interest.
- And our third little escapade was to start something we called The Elf Control Band.
I went into a recording studio, took some classic rock songs and replaced the lyrics with Christmas sentiments (often silly in content) and then took my children–who ranged in age from third grade to junior high school–to embody these band members, dressing them in rubber elf ears, striped socks, funny hats, then placing them on a stage, lip-syncing and dancing to the songs which I had recorded.
To our amazement, this actually worked.
Although to this day my children insist that they do not have fond memories of the excursion, we got press coverage, television cameras and probably drew in the most “mall millers” this particular shopping center had experienced since they discovered fifteen dead raccoons in the heating ducts two years earlier.
We stocked our store with decorations and as much inventory as we could afford, and to our great fortune, only ended up by Christmas Day, losing about ten thousand dollars.
But here’s what I know: my children would never have had the experience of doing this together, creating a bond which has now lasted a lifetime. Matter of fact, one of them picked up a bass guitar that Christmas season which he has never put down and still plays funk and jazz today. Another one of the children started playing tambourine, cow bell and wood block and branched out into a career in drumline and technical support for those who march to a different beat.
It was truly amazing. It was creative in an environment where such shenanigans were viewed as bizarre, but still managed to gain enough acceptability to produce a smirk or two instead of just leers.
What I learned from The Elf Control Band is that even though something may seem silly, frivolous, out of step with the times or just downright ridiculous, it still can produce great benefit if energized by passion and love of life.
Some people spend their time wishing for what they could do. Others lament what they’ve already done.
I like to go out and do stuff and then … remember the good parts.
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