I started working there in March and by Christmas time I pretty much had the lay of the land. I was trapped in a world of hipsters, well, this was 1993 so the hipster of today hadn’t been invented yet, but they were hipsters nonetheless, twentysomethings who worshipped at the altar of Steve Jobs, wore shirts made of recycled paper, had multiple tattoos with at least one of them depicting Mother Earth crying and ate anything labeled organic. 

This was a so-called creative agency so brilliant ideas were supposed to be oozing out of the place like the bubbling crude that came from the ground right before Jed Clampett moved to Beverly Hills. My male coworkers tended to wear wool beanies that smelled and offended during the summer, and then in the winter, pretty much smelled and offended. The girls seemed to dress in whatever was the least wrinkled thing on the floor, but none of this matters because ragged dress and questionable hygiene and selfish behavior and a total lack of punctuality were taken to mean that these people were super creative.

Whatever, I was just along for the ride. We weren’t friends, we just worked together, so I did my job, they did theirs and on the weekends I went home and they went to some commune in Yreka where they make backpacks out of hemp.

As Christmas approached, word spread about a holiday party and I learned that the company had a tradition of an employee talent contest (tradition being they had one last year). I thought to myself, Cool, that should be incredibly awkward. The partners of the agency didn’t participate in the contest, just the employees, there were about ten of us. While participation was voluntary it seemed to me that to go to the party and then just watch the contest was a good way to get labeled a weenie. Besides, first prize was $500 cash, and truthfully, if there was any real talent in the agency it was wonderfully disguised.

It was the Friday before Christmas and they closed the office early and brought in a catered lunch. It was all very well intended and the office was full of that fake holiday cheer that comes after having six or seven beers with strangers … so there was a lot of contrived jolly and a lot of completely superficial ho-ho-ho.

I was just sort of idling in my own lane, trying to exist on the perimeter, not really engaged but trying to give the impression that I really, really was. And it was fairly easy to blend into the background actually because, as you know, hipsters want airtime. So a few hours pass and had a graceful way of exiting presented itself I would have taken it. With me being on the job only nine months, I was at a disadvantage, I had no idea about what was typical. I knew nothing about Christmas party protocol so I was flying blind. One of the partners now announced that the talent show would start in thirty minutes. It was unclear if anybody cared or if anyone planned to participate or if this was a serious competition between fame-seeking contestants or just a good-natured goof, like exchanging holiday gag gifts.

The contest started with the participants picking numbers from a hat to determine the performance order. I decided to hang back and, first, see who was participating and, second, try to gauge from their expressions whether they had a skill they had practiced or were just winging it. For some reason, I decided to take the last number in the hat, the number four.

There ended up being five contestants in the Agency Hipster Christmas Talent Contest and being relatively new, I was trying to send the message that I was good-natured and easy-going, but it was clear from the start that talent was a subjective concept and that good-natured and easy-going is a silly way to go through life.

The first contestant walked in with a top hat and a black cape that he must have borrowed from his five-year-old nephew. He was there to do card tricks. Pick a card, any card! It was pretty sad. Is this your card, is this your card, is this your card? None of them were. The magic never happened and if it hadn’t been for his cocky attitude, I would have felt bad for him.

A girl got up next and she tried to perform a traditional middle eastern belly dance thing. She had a portable cassette player and she kinda started stripping down into belly dance attire, which should have worked out wonderfully in her favor, but the music stopped and started and she was pretty drunk and it turned into a creepy, clumsy thing that you wanted to burn from your mind.

After the bellies stopped dancing a second girl got up and her skill was real-time origami. She said that instead of the traditional cranes and swans she was gonna fold Santa and his reindeer. Well, she starts folding Prancer or Vixen or one of those guys and the clock starts to tick, five minutes turns into ten minutes and still not a completed reindeer, I’m thinking, “Holy shit, someone’s gonna have to tell this little folder that Christmas is on its way and time’s up.” It was basically decided that she could continue working while the contest moved on.

Now it was my turn and I was sober and while I knew that my talent wasn’t really talent in the grand scheme of things, it was comforting to see that the bar wasn’t set very high, in fact, it looked to be at about curb level. I said, “I’m hear to whistle Christmas tunes,” and not just any tunes but a lovely three-song medley, “Silver Bells,” “Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Joy to the World.” I knew that even if I whistled poorly (which was likely) that the key was to just keep going and give them the impression that I was serious about whistling. The room was very quiet, I think everyone was scared for me. People were holding their breath, but by the time I got to the first chorus, Soon it will be Christmas day … I had them. They cheered as I transitioned flawlessly to the Burl Ives classic and the “Joy to the World” finale, well, they liked it as only drunk coworkers scared by bad card tricks and origami can.

The guy after me knew he was fucked. He had a tambourine and flower child scarf/bandana thing around his head and he tried to pull off some sort of Woodstock singalong. He was laughing and buzzed and the concept was leaking oil from the start. He was banging the tambourine on his hip with the absence of even a sliver of rhythm and, had this been a vaudeville act, he would have got the hook.

All of the employees were asked to cast a vote. You couldn’t vote for yourself and when you turned in your slip of paper it was read and tallied in front of you to prevent any hanky-panky.

I drove home with five crisp hundred dollar bills in my pocket … maybe a Christmas miracle, but more likely proof of the concept that talent rarely wins the day, rather the winner is he who continues to whistle a happy tune.