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The inspiration for this interview struck
me first in August of 1987. In October of that
year, I made my initial contact with Steve
Trophmeier, who was then serving in a dual
capacity as Santa Claus’s entertainment law
yer and publicist. The publication of this piece
represents the culmination of a nine-year
struggle, an enterprise during which I have
been faced with more journalistic red tape
than a political correspondent at Pravda.
Flagpole: It seems that you have been around
for some time Can you tell me about your youth!
Santa Claus: It’s true. I am very old. To
the best of my recollection, 1 was bom in San
Juan, Puerto Rico, in the year 1817. Grow
ing up, we were very poor, and my father
would spend his days smashing conch shells
into dust, and selling it as “sea sand.” He was
very despondent over his inability to make a
living in this way. One time, 1 tried taking
him to the beach in order to show him all the
“sea sand" people could have free of charge.
This made him very irritable, and a few days
later he shaved off his eyebrows. He consid
ered himself an artist. H . as a very caring,
sensitive, stupid man.
FP: Did you have any hobbies in those days’
SC: As a young man, my first love was bil
liards, and I was very intent tin making it my
profession. In my late teens I moved to New
York City and began frequenting the p^xil halls
and speakeasies uptown. I was a very bad player,
to be honest, because my eyesight was so poor,
and 1 was very fat and couldn’t count higher
than four. At any rate, those were tough neigh-
borhtmds back then, and it wasn't long before
i began running with a rough crowd — evei y-
thing from petty hustlers to wise gays with se
rious ties to organized crime.
My best friend in those days was an
Irishman named Billy McBibbons, who re
minded me very much of mv father. Very
ambitious, a complete imbecile. He later died
while attempting to swallow a whit'fish with
out chewing.
Bibby (that's what we called him) was a
real sociopath and serious degenerate. He was
always dreaming up crime sprees and massive
frauds which he thought might make us
wealthy beyond all reason. In the autumn of
1838, he shared with me and some of the
other guys a get-rich scheme which he fig
ured was foolproof. If we could only find a
wav to get into people’s homes, he said, and
leave some small gift, we’d make a fortune!
And we all thought, “This makes absolutely
zero sense.” But we had nothing better to do,
so we decided to give it a try. Bibby fashioned
some little wooden dolls, and we climbed up
on a few people’s roofs in Vermont and
dropped them down their chimneys. It was
asinine. But as I said, no cne ever accused
Bibby of being the sharpest knife in the
drawer. And that’s how Christmas was bom.
FP: How do you like working with elves!
SC: Honestly, it’s mixed bag. I don’t think
people typically understand what hideous
creatures elves are. Not all of them, but the
ones who drink. And that’s just about all of
them. Give an elf two tablespoons of vanilla
extract, and you’ve got a full-blown riot on
your hands.
FP: Are you an elf’
SC: No, I’m a Protestant.
FP: How did the tradition of placing coal in
the stockings o) naughty children get ns origin!
SC: Originally, I would fill the stockings
of “naughty" children with live hamsters.
That proved expensive, however, and we
eventually suspended the practice. Following
that, Roderick Jenkins, one of my helpers,
came up with the idea of putting charcoal
inside the “naughty stockings” and then set
ting them on fire. And that worked great for
a few years until an incident where the city
of Modesto, Tex., was burnt to the ground.
Now we’ve resorted to leaving only coal,
which naughty children probably just use to
deface property.
FP: Do you anticipate remaining in your
current line of work indefinitely!
SC: No. Absolutely not. Next Christmas
will be my final year, or maybe the one after
that. I’ve been at this a long time, and there
are other things I am anx.ous to do.
FP: Like what!
SC: I have twe projects currently in the
works. One is a series of two-act plays I have
written entitled “Reindeer and Red Beer,”
J&SGD&qg
which may become a film project for
Miramax. The other is a sort of one-man show
I’ve conceived, which will be a very bio
graphical, very harsh look at my own experi
ences. That one is called “A Troll Full of Jelly.”
I have also considered doing television, but
to be honest, it’s pretty much all crap. There
are a couple of things I like to watch —
“Wings” is good — but basically I find it ap
palling.
FP: Any closing remarks you would like to
direct to those who would claim you don’t exist ’
SC: 1 would ask them to reevaluate their
own notions of existence and reality. For ex
ample (Mr. Claus removes his hat], does this
hat really exist? [He begins stroking the hat.)
Or is it really a cat or some kind of little
bunny? I don’t have the answers to these ques
tions any more than you do. I’m just trying to
stay out of jail.
Timothy Bracy
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