December 24, 2025 • 36 mins
It was Christmas Eve, and Bradley wanted to know all about your traditions! Listen to him talk about everything Christmas related! From your favorite movies to your favorite dishes to prepare. Bradley also wanted to know: Are you a fan of Yankee Swaps and how do you play? Do you have a real tree or a fake one, and how long do you keep it up? Do you wrap your gifts or is it just a big toy store under the tree – do you remove the price tags? What’s in the stockings these days, and how does it differ from yesteryear? What do you do with the Christmas cards after the holiday? How far do you travel and who are you visiting – are you happy about it, or is it a drag? Bradley welcomed all to join him for some good old-fashioned WBZ family Christmas fun!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's Nice Eyes with Dan Ray. I'mbelling you Mazy Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
That is correct. It is night Side with Dan Ray.
I'm Bradley Jay and for Dan tonight, and welcome to
Christmas open House. You know, usually we come out of
the gate here with some intense guests or some very
relevant guests, and it's all very tight and organized. Not tonight.
It's a Christmas open house. I'm very happy to have
(00:28):
it be a relaxed opportunity for you to just check
in and not have to give your opinion on anything
or you have any particular story that you have to tell.
All the Christmas story are always welcome here. And you
know most I don't know actually the ratio of people
(00:52):
who have families to those who don't. But it occurs
to me that a lot of Christmas talk is about family.
But it also occurs to me that there are many, many,
many people without any families who are listening to my
voice on Christmas Eve alone. And you are also invited
(01:12):
to the uh WBZ Night Side Christmas open House just
to hang out, share some verbal wastle, if you will.
The number to do that is six, one, seven, two, five,
four ten thirty and I don't know about you, but
the first order of business, there's no real order of business,
(01:33):
as I just said, but I would like to delve
into a little bit the Christmas spirit. There is such
a thing as the Christmas spirit, and it's harder and
harder for me to find. And I don't mean to
pooh pooh Christmas or spirit at all, but you know
that magic that you had when you're a kid, and
(01:53):
it would pop back time to time from time to
time when you're an adult. I haven't felt that. I
had a flash of it a little bit in a
hotel lobby that was well decorated. So I am curious
about if you happen to have a handle on the
(02:14):
things that will pop you into the Christmas spirit. What
do you need to see you here to think? Ah,
there it is. And I'd also like you to describe
the Christmas spirit? What is the Christmas Spirit? I have
a theory which I will change I will share with
you later. And one thing, uh, one way to kind
(02:39):
of to jumpstart this is for me to tell a
story or two about back in the day when I
was you know, when I definitely had that kid Christmas
spirit and I'll be quick a little story. First of all,
in the news you may have noticed were measles. Well,
measles played a pretty integral part in one of my Christmases.
(03:03):
As a matter of fact, for three or four Christmases
in a row, I was sick with this or that
of momps. The people still even get the mumps, I
haven't heard about months. Maybe that's because of a vaccine. Anyway, Well,
I remember, I don't know, maybe I was six. What
(03:26):
age are you when you get do you know what
a friction toy is? It's a toy. It's like a
car or chalk, and you push it along the ground
around a table and sparks come out and it gets
a little momentum. He goes huh, And sparks come out
and you let it go and it travels a little way. Well,
I was whatever age you are to get those, because
(03:47):
it got a couple of those. But I do remember
in our the house I grew up, which my father
and mother built with another guy. By the way, three
people built it like with hammer and nails. You come
into the kitchen, then you go into a dining room,
then you go into the living room. But this one
Christmas we had to be it was all dark. We
(04:10):
had these cots set up, three three kids, three boys,
and we couldn't look outdoors. We had to be completely
dark in this room. I don't know if people do
that anymore for Meaesels patients, but I do remember, and
it does give me a twinge of Christmas spirit playing
with those friction toys and from a lot of you
(04:34):
that will mean nothing. Those little metal cars with wheels
that shot out sparks when you pushed them along. And
this was like a week. We were in quarantine for
a week or something crazy like that. And then I remember,
like the year after that, they had to be upstairs
(04:56):
with some other sickness while they were having Christmas downstairs.
It seemed to be a thing. What happily no sickness
this year. And I'd love to have more stories too,
now share, But geez, I got to get to the calls.
The lines are full, almost full. Actually there there's one open.
(05:17):
And this is a rewarding for me to see again.
This is an easy going, non confrontational hangout. So if
you just want to go, hey, hey's up Pratley j
married married to the Christmas, you know, go ahead, you
(05:37):
don't need to have an opinion on anything. I'll just
say I'll just say, hey, Bob or whomever where you're
calling from, what are you doing right now, what's going
on in your life? Anything you want, anything you want
to talk about. It's a Christmas open house Mosey in
Mosey out here on WBZ. By the way, if you're
(05:58):
in a car and you driving along listening to the radio,
when you get out and you can't listen to the
radio anymore because you don't have a radio or something,
you can you can just run in the house, get
on the computer box and turn on the iHeart app.
Pick up where you left off. Let's start with Mark
in very in mass that's quite quite general him Mark,
(06:24):
to go to break. All right, I've been I received
the message to go to break. But I do see
you there, Mark, Lily, David and Jake in Roxbury Town
and we'll see if you can sort this out. Right
after this on.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Wb Z, you're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Bradley j for Dan, and it's a Christmas open house
on night Side. Christmas story for me, Well, there are
a bunch but the this is what resonates with me.
(07:08):
Picture this. It's a small New Hampshire town. It was
a good town back then, but now it's a nasty town.
Where I grew up used to be about one hundred
yards between driveways and sometimes a quarter of a mile.
But for some reason, I guess, the zoning laws relaxed.
Now they just bulldoze a driveway. They just put a
(07:30):
bulldozer in, drop a trailer there. Oh okay, so when
you driveway I used to live, it's kind of ugly.
But now it used to be a pastoral farm land area.
And you know that, like I only had one friend,
there were only seven hundred. There were under eight hundred
people in the town. Everybody knew everybody it. You know.
(07:52):
The school I went to, all eight grades were in
one room for the first year. One room, not one
in the school, one room. See, you'd be sitting beside
if you were in the first grade, you might be
sitting beside an eighth grader. Also at race Us, the
eighth grader would be throwing the basketball at you, a
first grader and knocking you down. So freezing in it.
(08:17):
And we had big hills out there. We had our
we had our and this is the Christmas winter season.
We had our flying sauceress, back when flying saucers were
made of a lumin and remember that. So if you
got hit in the head with one, you got stitches.
If you got hitting the teeth with one, you got
a tooth missing. And this was what it was like
(08:39):
on more than one Christmas. Even my father was an
early adopter of stereos, this music and stuff. He got
one of the first stereos ever made. And this was
back and I'm sure some of you remember when there
were two cabinets, two big cabinets, one to one side
(09:01):
of the room. It was the size of I don't know,
a dishwasher, a big dish washer, No, I know the
size of a stove. There you go, and then the
other side of the room was the other part of it,
also the same size, and the speakers in him were huge.
The speakers were foot across and not everyone had these.
(09:23):
So on Christmas Eve, my father would lug these things
out on the porch and on this these crystal dry
Christmas nights where you could hear it forever, he'd play
Christmas carols and the whole town like you could hear
it for a mile in each direction, and the whole
(09:45):
town would look forward to my father doing this. There
was only one sort of rub, and that is the
cold weather and stereos and stuff. Back then a lot
of non digital parts. And this was a turntable. By
the way, these were records, and so there was a turntable,
(10:08):
and I guess the turntable had grease in the moving parts,
so as it got colder, the thing would slow down.
So at first, you know, for an hour, maybe an
hour and a half Abe god rest Gee, regientle Man,
and then a couple hours later it would slow down
(10:29):
until it got a little weird. But we liked it
so much that we slept in the attic, which was
not insulated or anything, because it was closer to the stereo.
Its closer to the front. We could have slept in
the bedroom, but we slept in the attic, which had
no no heat, nothing. Now we covered up and as
(10:54):
one thing I do remember, I had a cough. Does
anybody remember that? Horrific save the baby cough syrup. It
was horrific. It wasn't it like the robitussin of modern days.
It was awful. So that's another memory for me and
(11:15):
That's one more, and that is I wanted skis. I
wanted to be a skier, so I got some skis.
I guess they got some use skis. It was a
long time ago. People didn't have a lot of money.
My father was a laborer. A laborer. He used to
drive a bulldozer, and then he worked at a tannery
(11:36):
doing some god awful tannery job. It was actually they'd
have these big sides of leather and they'd have defects
and he'd cut out the defects. That was his job.
And my mother was a school teacher. We were poor,
but we didn't have money from skis. So they got
some use skis and I was all gong home to
go ski and I wanted to go to Gunstalk right away,
but I've never been on skis. They said, uh yeah,
(11:58):
about that, Maybe we should go down to the pig farm.
This is true. This is Bradley Jays where he grew up.
And I'm really happy to have the opportunity to tell
you this. You think of me as a city slicker,
don't you think of me as a radio DJ Boston dude?
Deep down inside, I'm the guy who goes skiing at
(12:19):
the pig farm, so there was all kinds of crust.
Back in the day, you'd have a crust, no crust anymore.
Do you remember a cross where you could slide on
a sled on a foot of snow with an inch
of crust on the top. It's back when I was crushed.
So these two the pig farm was called the pig
farm because it was a pig farm. But it had
these two big hills. And my parents wisely just said, look,
(12:43):
why don't you get down the bottom of the hill
and mess around on those skis and see what you think?
And I said, okay, and then I was like falling down.
It's pretty clear that there's no way I could get
down the hill. I feel kind of bad for them
because they it would have been good if I'd had
some ski experience before I got I had them for Christmas,
(13:06):
because then if I had, I wouldn't have wanted them
for Christmas. And it was only a few years later
that I actually started skiing again. This is the the
country white Christmas, ye kind of thing. This was right
after Christmas. On another year, there was another family who
had another hill and they had a rope so and
(13:28):
they were nuts to have a rope toe. No one.
I mean, now, you would never have a rope toe
because of the liability. But do you know what I
mean by a rope toe. They had a big hill
and they put a car up on blocks, took the
back tire off. One of the guys put it in
low and had this big and the wheel was used
as a pulley. I'm sure it's been done before, and
(13:51):
it would had the strength and low gear to pull
a bunch of kids up a hill, but they had
They had kind of cleared some land at the bottom,
but not enough. So I skied down and I didn't
know what I was doing and I crashed into a tree,
(14:12):
well a route, a stump, let's call it. And I
heard my kne go. It made a son that was terrible, terrible,
and that's and that was That's the extent of my
Christmas ski story. Kind of kind of sad, but that's
how real stories go. Let me check with Master Control
(14:34):
and see ifties. Are we ready to take colors yet?
I know he seems to be on the phone. I'm
just gonna take a shot in the dark and see
if David in San Francisco, can you can hear me, David,
are you there? That sounds like a negative? Oh okay,
Well this is good because in a way, because this
is a true test of talk show hosts.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Right, no calls, no nothing, just gotta just got a deal.
That's fine. Are you okay?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
We have rored from a master It sounds like master control?
Is who do we have? Since you put them on? Okay,
Mark in Massachusetts? So we are. We are by hooking
and by cooking it here. So Mark, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Can you hear me?
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Okay, yes, I.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Can hear you. Okay. A merry Christmas to you?
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Uh. He told people to call a fear. Don't have
much of the holidays, they are rough exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yes, thank you for taking me up on that. I
appreciate that. I myself have been in your position many
a time. So tell me about you or your situation
or anything you want to say, like like, are you
just in a room by yourself watching regular Oh well no,
you're actually listening to w b Z. But did you
have any family at all or any friends at all?
(16:00):
I mean, if and if this is a real SOB story,
that's cool too. Let's bring it on.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Well, my family died, my brother died. I try to
contact some people I know, but some of them have died,
and I don't know what happened to many people. And
I hardly get much and I'm not treated well and
I am not How.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Do you mean you're not treated well?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Well? I have people find to I'm going to work
for nothing. I don't want to get into it, and
don't get me anything, and lie to me and tell
them they're going to take me places at don't show
up and I get ripped off. I don't get much.
I got Holly, I got nothing for Holly anything for all.
Nobody gets me much of anything, and I'm I'm not
(16:49):
being a good move.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, you see, folks, even if folks, most of you,
if you thought you Christmas was pretty bad, here you
go take a look at mark situation, and this is
pretty good compared to Mark. This stuff happened to you?
Why you do you suppose?
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Why is it you that all this bad stuff happens too?
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I just don't know. Some of it's not my fault
and I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
So is there anything we can take a look at,
anything at all that's good?
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
On this Christmas Eve? You are able to speak. Are
you able to walk and talk and see?
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yes, Oh there's that, okay, because.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
A lot of people can't do those things. Yes, that's
good and you're able to. Can you afford shelter? Do
you have a place to live? Yes, yes, okay, that's
pretty good. A lot of people don't have that. Yes,
we're trying to take a look now at the bright side.
(17:50):
As they say in the Monty python A movie. Let's
see food. You have food.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Some somewhat years somewhat. Yes, yeah, I have food. I'm
getting a be able to live it to me tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Oh that's good. But you have stuff in the cupboard,
craft dinner, stuff like that, soup whatever.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Yes, it's good.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Anybody I've got something I'm a ball with on my laptop.
But I think that was one bet of thing that
happened to me. But I have a lot of unfortunate
things happened to me.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Jeeze, I's like, that's true, And who am I to
to minimize your situation? But you got you do have
a lot of stuff going for you. You can, like,
you're able to walk. You would be amazing at how
many people are blind, can't walk, don't have a place
to live. You know, at least you're not bundled up
(18:46):
in some sort of packing blanket in a doorway somewhere
like a lot of people are.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
So there's that.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Why don't you Why didn't you focus on that for
a while? And also you have us at w b's
now you now you have friends here marking messages mark
in Massachusetts? So mart, what town is that a secret
secret town? Or you don't want us to know it?
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well, it's okay. Another thing I went to work through
some place and all I got the holidays was a towel.
Get more than.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
You're a complainer, So a towel. I don't have a
decent towel. I would love a towel anyway, I got
lots of people to get to try to focus on
the good things you did. You have food, shelter, you
can walk, you can see, and you have a brand
(19:41):
new towel. So there's that. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Let's go see if it were I guess we're doing
this manually. Now we'll take a break and uh now
we'll continue after this.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
On WBS, It's Night Side on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Mayor Chris so here we are it's a Christmas open
house on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm Bradley j
for Dan. Let's talk to Jake and Roxbury next time.
Wret you be easy, Hi Jake?
Speaker 5 (20:09):
Hey Daran? Can you hear me? Okay? Yes, all right, buddy,
I'm a little piece of level, but.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
I'm well put together. That's I'm sorry, Bradley Man, I
said Dan. I'm sorry, buddy, but at any rate, that's
my it's my info with Dan. So talking about Christmas,
you know, I just want to talk about a real
quick Last year I went to the tree lighting ceremony
on the Common. That was a great experience. I didn't
go this year, but it's one of those common things
(20:34):
where I think there's a lot of unity and you know,
people reminiscent.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
And all that kind of good stuff. So that really
feels good.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
That's a good idea. I hadn't thought that. Yeah, very
Christmas spirity, right.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Yeah, very Christmas spirit. It's the Common, you know, it's
it's unity, it's a ton of different people, it's all
that all that eclectic type stuff that goes on. There's
there's shows there and you know, they put on they
put on a great event for a Christmas tree lighting
ceremony every year. I didn't get to go this year
because of work. However, speaking of work, I want to
talk about someone who came to out store today and
(21:11):
I was talking to the customers and there were two
sisters and we got somehow talking about Christmas Carolyn. And
believe it or not, these two sisters were two sisters
that used to be in a group that used to
go Carolyn, and they started Carolyn in the store. Really yes,
and they were they were doing Grandmother's House through the
(21:32):
Woods and all that good stuff.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
It was.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
They sounded great.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
How many songs did they do too?
Speaker 5 (21:40):
They did too, and it was really interesting. And they
talked about how it's kind of like a dying thing
because they don't have that atmosphere of unity and you know,
neighborhoodism anymore, you know what I mean. Yes, yeah, so
that doesn't work. But but yeah, they were very good
and very very I think it lightened the whole store
(22:01):
and we sold a lot more fish.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So you working at fish store.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Well kind of, I reckon. I always see a seafood department.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh wow, oh yeah, the picture you're in a supermarket
right here, So.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I reckon I've worked for restaurant depot. Okay, well, I'm
sure some of your customers probably have met me and
don't know who I am. But anyway, shake and so yeah,
we we brung them some eels today and we sold
out of them. I'm like, eels, live eels, and customers
weren't crazy and we sold out of them. And you know,
no time.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
A big Christmas food. I'll have to try that next year.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
No, you have no idea what we what we think? Uh,
you know, customs for people and all that crunch meat
and all this good stuff. But anyway, my mom used
to take us to New York City when I was
a kid on the Trailways bus. If you remember where
Trailways used to be down off a lot, I think
it was Boilston Street. Used to be able to drive
through the building the old Away station.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Well, it was like near Park Park Square.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
Park Square exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
It was near the Playboy Club, Am I right?
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Well, I don't know much about the Playboy Club. I
just know I was a kid, and you know, you'd
go through used to drive through the middle of the building.
The trailways was underneath the building there on the left
hand side, and it was great, and.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
You go down to New York and have a New
York person.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
The Massy's Day parade. She did that about three times
for us, and we were you know, dirt for but
she made it happen. So so you know, I thank
her for that. And those are some things that you
just have to even for your I believe it was Mark,
your previous caller. I'm sure there are some positive things
he can look at back on his life that he
(23:46):
can you know, use those to step off of, because
you got to remember, tough times don't last and tough
people do. So that's that's a mantra that he can
probably you know, get a little I hope, I hope
lifts from. So you know, always look at the positive
side of things. Yeah, you don't have this, however, you
got your health, you got shelter, you got you know,
there's some positive things to all.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, Jake, great, great, great call you.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Yeah, we want to brighten things up and go on
the go on the good side. Although times might be
a little tough, you know, it's gonna get better for everybody.
So let's look at it that way. And you know,
let people know, man, they got to go to that
Christmas street light and ceremony that happens on the common.
It's just a great event.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
All right, Jake, Let's say goodbye to excuse me for Shane.
Let's say go by to Jake. It's a little different today.
Usually I have the capability to click on the calls
myself to say hello and goodbye, but in this case
that system is not working. So I will be saying
to Shane the master control operator, asking him what's it
(24:46):
to do things? So now let us go to alex
and millis he believing? Bradley, Hello, my Greek friend, how
are you?
Speaker 5 (24:57):
How are you?
Speaker 7 (24:59):
I can tell you many stories. I just came from
church with my son and they had a beautiful, beautiful
ceremony and a lot of people.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (25:11):
And on the way I would there's nobody on the road,
and it's so beautiful with all the decorations from the lights,
and you know, a couple of songs came on. I
was listening to a couple of songs. One of them
was Silent Night and how appropriate you know?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
So, so I know that you're very very Greek and
very proud of being Greek. Do you go to a
Greek Orthodox church?
Speaker 7 (25:35):
I do We go to two of them, two different ones.
But one is in the South End where I grew up,
and it's Saint John's and it's a beautiful church. It's
one on the historical Society. There used to be a
synagogue and then there was a Protestant church and then
they got converted to an Orthodox church.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know, I actually went to Bethlehem and and I
and Nazareth and I think, I I mean, they told
me that they have they have the spot, this is
where Jesus actually was born right here, right on this spot.
And I believe that is that there's a Greek Orthodox
(26:18):
church built around that. I think you go into the church.
I could be wrong. It was a long time ago.
Speaker 7 (26:23):
Oh there is, I believe. I mean, I'm not the
most religious person in the world, but I know. My
wife had a couple of medical issues. She's she's fine now,
and she went to the chapel in Brookline, which is
another where there's the theological school, and our priest did uh,
(26:44):
you know, a prayer for her with some relics of
a saint uh and uh and for for what, for
one reason or another, her diagnosis turned to be uh,
you know positive.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Well, well, where we can get it. And that's that's fantastic.
The power of love, the power of God, the power
of of whatever else is mixed in there seem to
do it to work.
Speaker 7 (27:08):
Yeah, and now you said, what is the meaning of Christmas?
I would say, you know, spending time with family for
those who are fortunate to have family, h you know,
feeling a little bit more generous and normal, gift giving
U you know, being kind to people. It's it's amazing
though Christmas and Easter and New Year's people are nice
(27:31):
to each other. However, it doesn't apply for the rest
of the year.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Here's a question for everybody to think about. We tend
to be nicer to each other in person on Christmas.
Do we also tend to be nicer to each other online? Hmm?
I bet you. I bet no, but I'm no, but
I could be wrong. Maybe others have noticed that people
(27:56):
are even friendly online.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
In the Christmas I have, you know, I have a
list of actually things.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
It is.
Speaker 7 (28:05):
It is a little stressful because Christmas is like a
double edged sword. You know, it's beautiful, but then again,
you know, you've got to Now tomorrow we're going to
visit my brother. There's there's gonna be about twenty four
of us. We each bring something. But I can imagine,
you know, all the preparations that are required, you know,
like you have to run here, run there. So it's
(28:27):
basically like you know, having a full time job besides
whatever else you do, you know to try to Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Well, thanks so much, Alex. I always love hearing from you.
Bye bye bye now, Alex, and we gotta we have
Linda and Weymouth and David in San Francisco six one
seven two, four thirty. I don't know who's been on
a hole longer. It's stuff to tell. I think David
in San Francisco. Right, let's go with David. How you doing, David?
(28:54):
Glad you could be with us a Christmas Eve?
Speaker 9 (28:57):
Hey, Brad, he's so good to hear your voice. Man,
my big radio entertainment. And uh a happy Christmas Eve
to you and also related happy Festus to you and.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Uh and birthday by the way, it's too it was
Miles on my birthday a week ago. That's what I thought.
That's what you're going to say.
Speaker 9 (29:19):
Yeah, but anyhow, I uh, you and Morgan are my
favorite radio show hosts and uh, I tell my friends
and I said, there's a pair of the Beats a fullhouse.
And I just uh listened to Morgan show every Saturday night,
and I'm glad when you're on Thank You?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Can I ask you? I know that you get meals
brought to you by a service like the city or something.
Do do they give you a Christmas meal when they
swing by on Christmas? Like whatever a Christmas wheel is? Goose?
I ask that again, do you get do they bring
(30:05):
you a special Christmas meal? Because I know you kind
of get wheat meals on wheels or something like that.
Do they bring us?
Speaker 9 (30:12):
I do I get meals? As a matter of fact,
on Christmas Day, I'm having a visitor bringing me Avoka
chocolate from Little Brothers, And uh, I'm really going to
enjoy that. And let me share something with you. Uh,
there's another food service in San Francisco. It's called Meals
on Heels. Yeah, and it's a drag queen food delivery service.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Well, sign me up for that, Francisco.
Speaker 9 (30:42):
It's the only place I know of it. But uh,
and let me ask you, Bradley, you know where the
word drag comes from?
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I feel like I might have used to known this,
but I have forgotten if I might have told you once,
all right, tell me again.
Speaker 9 (30:57):
It came from Shakespeare, Okay. Can you bet When Shakespeare
was writing his stories, all the actors were men, and
if there was a female character in the story, he
was actually writing in the margin the word drag dressed
as girl.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
That is worth its weight in gold right there?
Speaker 9 (31:18):
That you know you learn is that word. And I
want to share it with that with you.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
But they say you learned something every day. But I
hadn't learned everything anything all week. But that made effort
right there. That was good.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (31:30):
But and you know about the origin of festiv Us,
right yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Jerry Seinfeld or actually George Costanzo.
Speaker 9 (31:39):
Will as a writer for Seinfeld. His name was Dan
O'Keefe and his father was back in the nineteen fifties,
was so disgusted and disarmed with commercialization of Christmas. He said,
forget Christmas. He's going to start his own holiday. And
it was fest of Us.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
All right, David, they're telling me I have to say goodbye,
So thank you so much for calling, and Merry Christmas
to you, David. Now this on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZZY Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
It's everything Christmas on Night's side. I'm Brady Jane for
Dan tonight and it's a Christmas open house. Just let
her rip six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty.
I just thought of this. By the way, do you
get your pet a Christmas present? And even more well, equally, Jermaine,
(32:32):
do you dress your pat up in some sort of
Christmas outfit? I think that's much more common with smaller
dogs and larger dogs. But I will confess to.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
You that.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Our household, well we have it. We have Molly the
docs and does get dressed up for her Christmas photo.
This year she was a reindeer and we went to
a pancy hotel which allowed pets, had a beautiful, beautiful
Christmas tree, and we got a nice photo of Molly
(33:08):
the ducks and reindeer. And I will admit it's kind
of cute. I'm not a giant fan of that, but
in this case it was cute. I gave it. I
gave it the okay. I don't really get I don't
really get to give an okay or not, but I did. Anyway,
let's let's talk with Linda now in Waymouth. Thanks so much,
(33:31):
for calling us up. How you doing, Linda?
Speaker 8 (33:33):
Pretty well? I came from a church service today and
it was beautiful, full packed church service in Hingham and music,
the Christmas carols, some scripture, a little message from the
pastor and we greeted one another and we mosied along.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
You know, I have to say, of all the of
all the ways to maybe get some actual Christmas spirit,
maybe church might be the best one because because you know,
you know when it's going to be, you know everyone
there's going to be into it, and it's designed for that,
it's decorated nicely, it's all about that. And so it
(34:20):
seems like I actually jotted that down as one of
the places you get you get your your pharmaceutical strength
dose of Christmas spirit. And it worked for you, right.
Speaker 8 (34:30):
And man, what we did this week last weekend is
first time we had miracle on Main Street and it
was a series of little shelters and we had our
Capnder and he was doing his thing, a textile person
(34:52):
she was doing some her thing is as you would
in the olden days by and it was and then
we had the end, big side, no vacancy, and next
to it was the stable with the manger with a
couple and a baby, and half the time it was
(35:14):
a real baby and we had a doggy and petting goats.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Linda, thank you for checking in. I think your idea
is perfect.
Speaker 8 (35:23):
You have to get a quick question. I used to
go when I was a youngster gall of hilings basement filings,
and they had some sort of a thing on the windows,
and I was wondering if anybody else remembered that.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Oh, you need a big window. All right, let's ask.
I'm going to say go by to you, Linda, because
I have to, but maybe somebody will know that. That's
another way to get your Christmas spirit is to wander
around by Linda and wander around where they have nice
window displays and boil boy Christmas time and filings basement.
(35:59):
That's one thing that boomers have that young folks will
never have is the experience of filing his basement. The hustle,
the bustle, fighting over, fighting over underwear on don't sail
all right, my friends, let's continue. This is fun. It's
WBZ Night Side Christmas open House. Everybody is welcome, and
(36:21):
you know the number six, one, seven, two, five, four,
ten thirty on WBZ
It's Nice Eyes with Dan Ray. I'mbelling you Mazy Boston's
news Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
That is correct. It is night Side with Dan Ray.
I'm Bradley Jay and for Dan tonight, and welcome to
Christmas open House. You know, usually we come out of
the gate here with some intense guests or some very
relevant guests, and it's all very tight and organized. Not tonight.
It's a Christmas open house. I'm very happy to have
(00:28):
it be a relaxed opportunity for you to just check
in and not have to give your opinion on anything
or you have any particular story that you have to tell.
All the Christmas story are always welcome here. And you
know most I don't know actually the ratio of people
(00:52):
who have families to those who don't. But it occurs
to me that a lot of Christmas talk is about family.
But it also occurs to me that there are many, many,
many people without any families who are listening to my
voice on Christmas Eve alone. And you are also invited
(01:12):
to the uh WBZ Night Side Christmas open House just
to hang out, share some verbal wastle, if you will.
The number to do that is six, one, seven, two, five,
four ten thirty and I don't know about you, but
the first order of business, there's no real order of business,
(01:33):
as I just said, but I would like to delve
into a little bit the Christmas spirit. There is such
a thing as the Christmas spirit, and it's harder and
harder for me to find. And I don't mean to
pooh pooh Christmas or spirit at all, but you know
that magic that you had when you're a kid, and
(01:53):
it would pop back time to time from time to
time when you're an adult. I haven't felt that. I
had a flash of it a little bit in a
hotel lobby that was well decorated. So I am curious
about if you happen to have a handle on the
(02:14):
things that will pop you into the Christmas spirit. What
do you need to see you here to think? Ah,
there it is. And I'd also like you to describe
the Christmas spirit? What is the Christmas Spirit? I have
a theory which I will change I will share with
you later. And one thing, uh, one way to kind
(02:39):
of to jumpstart this is for me to tell a
story or two about back in the day when I
was you know, when I definitely had that kid Christmas
spirit and I'll be quick a little story. First of all,
in the news you may have noticed were measles. Well,
measles played a pretty integral part in one of my Christmases.
(03:03):
As a matter of fact, for three or four Christmases
in a row, I was sick with this or that
of momps. The people still even get the mumps, I
haven't heard about months. Maybe that's because of a vaccine. Anyway, Well,
I remember, I don't know, maybe I was six. What
(03:26):
age are you when you get do you know what
a friction toy is? It's a toy. It's like a
car or chalk, and you push it along the ground
around a table and sparks come out and it gets
a little momentum. He goes huh, And sparks come out
and you let it go and it travels a little way. Well,
I was whatever age you are to get those, because
(03:47):
it got a couple of those. But I do remember
in our the house I grew up, which my father
and mother built with another guy. By the way, three
people built it like with hammer and nails. You come
into the kitchen, then you go into a dining room,
then you go into the living room. But this one
Christmas we had to be it was all dark. We
(04:10):
had these cots set up, three three kids, three boys,
and we couldn't look outdoors. We had to be completely
dark in this room. I don't know if people do
that anymore for Meaesels patients, but I do remember, and
it does give me a twinge of Christmas spirit playing
with those friction toys and from a lot of you
(04:34):
that will mean nothing. Those little metal cars with wheels
that shot out sparks when you pushed them along. And
this was like a week. We were in quarantine for
a week or something crazy like that. And then I remember,
like the year after that, they had to be upstairs
(04:56):
with some other sickness while they were having Christmas downstairs.
It seemed to be a thing. What happily no sickness
this year. And I'd love to have more stories too,
now share, But geez, I got to get to the calls.
The lines are full, almost full. Actually there there's one open.
(05:17):
And this is a rewarding for me to see again.
This is an easy going, non confrontational hangout. So if
you just want to go, hey, hey's up Pratley j
married married to the Christmas, you know, go ahead, you
(05:37):
don't need to have an opinion on anything. I'll just
say I'll just say, hey, Bob or whomever where you're
calling from, what are you doing right now, what's going
on in your life? Anything you want, anything you want
to talk about. It's a Christmas open house Mosey in
Mosey out here on WBZ. By the way, if you're
(05:58):
in a car and you driving along listening to the radio,
when you get out and you can't listen to the
radio anymore because you don't have a radio or something,
you can you can just run in the house, get
on the computer box and turn on the iHeart app.
Pick up where you left off. Let's start with Mark
in very in mass that's quite quite general him Mark,
(06:24):
to go to break. All right, I've been I received
the message to go to break. But I do see
you there, Mark, Lily, David and Jake in Roxbury Town
and we'll see if you can sort this out. Right
after this on.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Wb Z, you're on night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ,
Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Bradley j for Dan, and it's a Christmas open house
on night Side. Christmas story for me, Well, there are
a bunch but the this is what resonates with me.
(07:08):
Picture this. It's a small New Hampshire town. It was
a good town back then, but now it's a nasty town.
Where I grew up used to be about one hundred
yards between driveways and sometimes a quarter of a mile.
But for some reason, I guess, the zoning laws relaxed.
Now they just bulldoze a driveway. They just put a
(07:30):
bulldozer in, drop a trailer there. Oh okay, so when
you driveway I used to live, it's kind of ugly.
But now it used to be a pastoral farm land area.
And you know that, like I only had one friend,
there were only seven hundred. There were under eight hundred
people in the town. Everybody knew everybody it. You know.
(07:52):
The school I went to, all eight grades were in
one room for the first year. One room, not one
in the school, one room. See, you'd be sitting beside
if you were in the first grade, you might be
sitting beside an eighth grader. Also at race Us, the
eighth grader would be throwing the basketball at you, a
first grader and knocking you down. So freezing in it.
(08:17):
And we had big hills out there. We had our
we had our and this is the Christmas winter season.
We had our flying sauceress, back when flying saucers were
made of a lumin and remember that. So if you
got hit in the head with one, you got stitches.
If you got hitting the teeth with one, you got
a tooth missing. And this was what it was like
(08:39):
on more than one Christmas. Even my father was an
early adopter of stereos, this music and stuff. He got
one of the first stereos ever made. And this was
back and I'm sure some of you remember when there
were two cabinets, two big cabinets, one to one side
(09:01):
of the room. It was the size of I don't know,
a dishwasher, a big dish washer, No, I know the
size of a stove. There you go, and then the
other side of the room was the other part of it,
also the same size, and the speakers in him were huge.
The speakers were foot across and not everyone had these.
(09:23):
So on Christmas Eve, my father would lug these things
out on the porch and on this these crystal dry
Christmas nights where you could hear it forever, he'd play
Christmas carols and the whole town like you could hear
it for a mile in each direction, and the whole
(09:45):
town would look forward to my father doing this. There
was only one sort of rub, and that is the
cold weather and stereos and stuff. Back then a lot
of non digital parts. And this was a turntable. By
the way, these were records, and so there was a turntable,
(10:08):
and I guess the turntable had grease in the moving parts,
so as it got colder, the thing would slow down.
So at first, you know, for an hour, maybe an
hour and a half Abe god rest Gee, regientle Man,
and then a couple hours later it would slow down
(10:29):
until it got a little weird. But we liked it
so much that we slept in the attic, which was
not insulated or anything, because it was closer to the stereo.
Its closer to the front. We could have slept in
the bedroom, but we slept in the attic, which had
no no heat, nothing. Now we covered up and as
(10:54):
one thing I do remember, I had a cough. Does
anybody remember that? Horrific save the baby cough syrup. It
was horrific. It wasn't it like the robitussin of modern days.
It was awful. So that's another memory for me and
(11:15):
That's one more, and that is I wanted skis. I
wanted to be a skier, so I got some skis.
I guess they got some use skis. It was a
long time ago. People didn't have a lot of money.
My father was a laborer. A laborer. He used to
drive a bulldozer, and then he worked at a tannery
(11:36):
doing some god awful tannery job. It was actually they'd
have these big sides of leather and they'd have defects
and he'd cut out the defects. That was his job.
And my mother was a school teacher. We were poor,
but we didn't have money from skis. So they got
some use skis and I was all gong home to
go ski and I wanted to go to Gunstalk right away,
but I've never been on skis. They said, uh yeah,
(11:58):
about that, Maybe we should go down to the pig farm.
This is true. This is Bradley Jays where he grew up.
And I'm really happy to have the opportunity to tell
you this. You think of me as a city slicker,
don't you think of me as a radio DJ Boston dude?
Deep down inside, I'm the guy who goes skiing at
(12:19):
the pig farm, so there was all kinds of crust.
Back in the day, you'd have a crust, no crust anymore.
Do you remember a cross where you could slide on
a sled on a foot of snow with an inch
of crust on the top. It's back when I was crushed.
So these two the pig farm was called the pig
farm because it was a pig farm. But it had
these two big hills. And my parents wisely just said, look,
(12:43):
why don't you get down the bottom of the hill
and mess around on those skis and see what you think?
And I said, okay, and then I was like falling down.
It's pretty clear that there's no way I could get
down the hill. I feel kind of bad for them
because they it would have been good if I'd had
some ski experience before I got I had them for Christmas,
(13:06):
because then if I had, I wouldn't have wanted them
for Christmas. And it was only a few years later
that I actually started skiing again. This is the the
country white Christmas, ye kind of thing. This was right
after Christmas. On another year, there was another family who
had another hill and they had a rope so and
(13:28):
they were nuts to have a rope toe. No one.
I mean, now, you would never have a rope toe
because of the liability. But do you know what I
mean by a rope toe. They had a big hill
and they put a car up on blocks, took the
back tire off. One of the guys put it in
low and had this big and the wheel was used
as a pulley. I'm sure it's been done before, and
(13:51):
it would had the strength and low gear to pull
a bunch of kids up a hill, but they had
They had kind of cleared some land at the bottom,
but not enough. So I skied down and I didn't
know what I was doing and I crashed into a tree,
(14:12):
well a route, a stump, let's call it. And I
heard my kne go. It made a son that was terrible, terrible,
and that's and that was That's the extent of my
Christmas ski story. Kind of kind of sad, but that's
how real stories go. Let me check with Master Control
(14:34):
and see ifties. Are we ready to take colors yet?
I know he seems to be on the phone. I'm
just gonna take a shot in the dark and see
if David in San Francisco, can you can hear me, David,
are you there? That sounds like a negative? Oh okay,
Well this is good because in a way, because this
is a true test of talk show hosts.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Right, no calls, no nothing, just gotta just got a deal.
That's fine. Are you okay?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
We have rored from a master It sounds like master control?
Is who do we have? Since you put them on? Okay,
Mark in Massachusetts? So we are. We are by hooking
and by cooking it here. So Mark, what's going on?
Speaker 4 (15:23):
Can you hear me?
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Okay, yes, I.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Can hear you. Okay. A merry Christmas to you?
Speaker 5 (15:30):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Uh. He told people to call a fear. Don't have
much of the holidays, they are rough exactly.
Speaker 2 (15:38):
Yes, thank you for taking me up on that. I
appreciate that. I myself have been in your position many
a time. So tell me about you or your situation
or anything you want to say, like like, are you
just in a room by yourself watching regular Oh well no,
you're actually listening to w b Z. But did you
have any family at all or any friends at all?
(16:00):
I mean, if and if this is a real SOB story,
that's cool too. Let's bring it on.
Speaker 4 (16:06):
Well, my family died, my brother died. I try to
contact some people I know, but some of them have died,
and I don't know what happened to many people. And
I hardly get much and I'm not treated well and
I am not How.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
Do you mean you're not treated well?
Speaker 4 (16:29):
Well? I have people find to I'm going to work
for nothing. I don't want to get into it, and
don't get me anything, and lie to me and tell
them they're going to take me places at don't show
up and I get ripped off. I don't get much.
I got Holly, I got nothing for Holly anything for all.
Nobody gets me much of anything, and I'm I'm not
(16:49):
being a good move.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, you see, folks, even if folks, most of you,
if you thought you Christmas was pretty bad, here you
go take a look at mark situation, and this is
pretty good compared to Mark. This stuff happened to you?
Why you do you suppose?
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Is it?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Why is it you that all this bad stuff happens too?
Speaker 4 (17:10):
I just don't know. Some of it's not my fault
and I don't know why.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
So is there anything we can take a look at,
anything at all that's good?
Speaker 5 (17:21):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (17:21):
On this Christmas Eve? You are able to speak. Are
you able to walk and talk and see?
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yes, Oh there's that, okay, because.
Speaker 2 (17:29):
A lot of people can't do those things. Yes, that's
good and you're able to. Can you afford shelter? Do
you have a place to live? Yes, yes, okay, that's
pretty good. A lot of people don't have that. Yes,
we're trying to take a look now at the bright side.
(17:50):
As they say in the Monty python A movie. Let's
see food. You have food.
Speaker 4 (17:59):
Some somewhat years somewhat. Yes, yeah, I have food. I'm
getting a be able to live it to me tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
Oh that's good. But you have stuff in the cupboard,
craft dinner, stuff like that, soup whatever.
Speaker 5 (18:12):
Yes, it's good.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
Anybody I've got something I'm a ball with on my laptop.
But I think that was one bet of thing that
happened to me. But I have a lot of unfortunate
things happened to me.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Jeeze, I's like, that's true, And who am I to
to minimize your situation? But you got you do have
a lot of stuff going for you. You can, like,
you're able to walk. You would be amazing at how
many people are blind, can't walk, don't have a place
to live. You know, at least you're not bundled up
(18:46):
in some sort of packing blanket in a doorway somewhere
like a lot of people are.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
So there's that.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Why don't you Why didn't you focus on that for
a while? And also you have us at w b's
now you now you have friends here marking messages mark
in Massachusetts? So mart, what town is that a secret
secret town? Or you don't want us to know it?
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Well, it's okay. Another thing I went to work through
some place and all I got the holidays was a towel.
Get more than.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
You're a complainer, So a towel. I don't have a
decent towel. I would love a towel anyway, I got
lots of people to get to try to focus on
the good things you did. You have food, shelter, you
can walk, you can see, and you have a brand
(19:41):
new towel. So there's that. Thank you. I appreciate that.
Let's go see if it were I guess we're doing
this manually. Now we'll take a break and uh now
we'll continue after this.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
On WBS, It's Night Side on Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Mayor Chris so here we are it's a Christmas open
house on night Side with Dan Ray. I'm Bradley j
for Dan. Let's talk to Jake and Roxbury next time.
Wret you be easy, Hi Jake?
Speaker 5 (20:09):
Hey Daran? Can you hear me? Okay? Yes, all right, buddy,
I'm a little piece of level, but.
Speaker 6 (20:14):
I'm well put together. That's I'm sorry, Bradley Man, I
said Dan. I'm sorry, buddy, but at any rate, that's
my it's my info with Dan. So talking about Christmas,
you know, I just want to talk about a real
quick Last year I went to the tree lighting ceremony
on the Common. That was a great experience. I didn't
go this year, but it's one of those common things
(20:34):
where I think there's a lot of unity and you know,
people reminiscent.
Speaker 5 (20:37):
And all that kind of good stuff. So that really
feels good.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
That's a good idea. I hadn't thought that. Yeah, very
Christmas spirity, right.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
Yeah, very Christmas spirit. It's the Common, you know, it's
it's unity, it's a ton of different people, it's all
that all that eclectic type stuff that goes on. There's
there's shows there and you know, they put on they
put on a great event for a Christmas tree lighting
ceremony every year. I didn't get to go this year
because of work. However, speaking of work, I want to
talk about someone who came to out store today and
(21:11):
I was talking to the customers and there were two
sisters and we got somehow talking about Christmas Carolyn. And
believe it or not, these two sisters were two sisters
that used to be in a group that used to
go Carolyn, and they started Carolyn in the store. Really yes,
and they were they were doing Grandmother's House through the
(21:32):
Woods and all that good stuff.
Speaker 6 (21:34):
It was.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
They sounded great.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
How many songs did they do too?
Speaker 5 (21:40):
They did too, and it was really interesting. And they
talked about how it's kind of like a dying thing
because they don't have that atmosphere of unity and you know,
neighborhoodism anymore, you know what I mean. Yes, yeah, so
that doesn't work. But but yeah, they were very good
and very very I think it lightened the whole store
(22:01):
and we sold a lot more fish.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
So you working at fish store.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Well kind of, I reckon. I always see a seafood department.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Oh wow, oh yeah, the picture you're in a supermarket
right here, So.
Speaker 5 (22:19):
I reckon I've worked for restaurant depot. Okay, well, I'm
sure some of your customers probably have met me and
don't know who I am. But anyway, shake and so yeah,
we we brung them some eels today and we sold
out of them. I'm like, eels, live eels, and customers
weren't crazy and we sold out of them. And you know,
no time.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
A big Christmas food. I'll have to try that next year.
Speaker 5 (22:41):
No, you have no idea what we what we think? Uh,
you know, customs for people and all that crunch meat
and all this good stuff. But anyway, my mom used
to take us to New York City when I was
a kid on the Trailways bus. If you remember where
Trailways used to be down off a lot, I think
it was Boilston Street. Used to be able to drive
through the building the old Away station.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Well, it was like near Park Park Square.
Speaker 5 (23:03):
Park Square exactly.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
It was near the Playboy Club, Am I right?
Speaker 5 (23:09):
Well, I don't know much about the Playboy Club. I
just know I was a kid, and you know, you'd
go through used to drive through the middle of the building.
The trailways was underneath the building there on the left
hand side, and it was great, and.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
You go down to New York and have a New
York person.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
The Massy's Day parade. She did that about three times
for us, and we were you know, dirt for but
she made it happen. So so you know, I thank
her for that. And those are some things that you
just have to even for your I believe it was Mark,
your previous caller. I'm sure there are some positive things
he can look at back on his life that he
(23:46):
can you know, use those to step off of, because
you got to remember, tough times don't last and tough
people do. So that's that's a mantra that he can
probably you know, get a little I hope, I hope
lifts from. So you know, always look at the positive
side of things. Yeah, you don't have this, however, you
got your health, you got shelter, you got you know,
there's some positive things to all.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah, Jake, great, great, great call you.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Yeah, we want to brighten things up and go on
the go on the good side. Although times might be
a little tough, you know, it's gonna get better for everybody.
So let's look at it that way. And you know,
let people know, man, they got to go to that
Christmas street light and ceremony that happens on the common.
It's just a great event.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
All right, Jake, Let's say goodbye to excuse me for Shane.
Let's say go by to Jake. It's a little different today.
Usually I have the capability to click on the calls
myself to say hello and goodbye, but in this case
that system is not working. So I will be saying
to Shane the master control operator, asking him what's it
(24:46):
to do things? So now let us go to alex
and millis he believing? Bradley, Hello, my Greek friend, how
are you?
Speaker 5 (24:57):
How are you?
Speaker 7 (24:59):
I can tell you many stories. I just came from
church with my son and they had a beautiful, beautiful
ceremony and a lot of people.
Speaker 8 (25:11):
Uh.
Speaker 7 (25:11):
And on the way I would there's nobody on the road,
and it's so beautiful with all the decorations from the lights,
and you know, a couple of songs came on. I
was listening to a couple of songs. One of them
was Silent Night and how appropriate you know?
Speaker 2 (25:29):
So, so I know that you're very very Greek and
very proud of being Greek. Do you go to a
Greek Orthodox church?
Speaker 7 (25:35):
I do We go to two of them, two different ones.
But one is in the South End where I grew up,
and it's Saint John's and it's a beautiful church. It's
one on the historical Society. There used to be a
synagogue and then there was a Protestant church and then
they got converted to an Orthodox church.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
You know, I actually went to Bethlehem and and I
and Nazareth and I think, I I mean, they told
me that they have they have the spot, this is
where Jesus actually was born right here, right on this spot.
And I believe that is that there's a Greek Orthodox
(26:18):
church built around that. I think you go into the church.
I could be wrong. It was a long time ago.
Speaker 7 (26:23):
Oh there is, I believe. I mean, I'm not the
most religious person in the world, but I know. My
wife had a couple of medical issues. She's she's fine now,
and she went to the chapel in Brookline, which is
another where there's the theological school, and our priest did uh,
(26:44):
you know, a prayer for her with some relics of
a saint uh and uh and for for what, for
one reason or another, her diagnosis turned to be uh,
you know positive.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
Well, well, where we can get it. And that's that's fantastic.
The power of love, the power of God, the power
of of whatever else is mixed in there seem to
do it to work.
Speaker 7 (27:08):
Yeah, and now you said, what is the meaning of Christmas?
I would say, you know, spending time with family for
those who are fortunate to have family, h you know,
feeling a little bit more generous and normal, gift giving
U you know, being kind to people. It's it's amazing
though Christmas and Easter and New Year's people are nice
(27:31):
to each other. However, it doesn't apply for the rest
of the year.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
Here's a question for everybody to think about. We tend
to be nicer to each other in person on Christmas.
Do we also tend to be nicer to each other online? Hmm?
I bet you. I bet no, but I'm no, but
I could be wrong. Maybe others have noticed that people
(27:56):
are even friendly online.
Speaker 5 (27:58):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
In the Christmas I have, you know, I have a
list of actually things.
Speaker 5 (28:05):
It is.
Speaker 7 (28:05):
It is a little stressful because Christmas is like a
double edged sword. You know, it's beautiful, but then again,
you know, you've got to Now tomorrow we're going to
visit my brother. There's there's gonna be about twenty four
of us. We each bring something. But I can imagine,
you know, all the preparations that are required, you know,
like you have to run here, run there. So it's
(28:27):
basically like you know, having a full time job besides
whatever else you do, you know to try to Yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
Well, thanks so much, Alex. I always love hearing from you.
Bye bye bye now, Alex, and we gotta we have
Linda and Weymouth and David in San Francisco six one
seven two, four thirty. I don't know who's been on
a hole longer. It's stuff to tell. I think David
in San Francisco. Right, let's go with David. How you doing, David?
(28:54):
Glad you could be with us a Christmas Eve?
Speaker 9 (28:57):
Hey, Brad, he's so good to hear your voice. Man,
my big radio entertainment. And uh a happy Christmas Eve
to you and also related happy Festus to you and.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Uh and birthday by the way, it's too it was
Miles on my birthday a week ago. That's what I thought.
That's what you're going to say.
Speaker 9 (29:19):
Yeah, but anyhow, I uh, you and Morgan are my
favorite radio show hosts and uh, I tell my friends
and I said, there's a pair of the Beats a fullhouse.
And I just uh listened to Morgan show every Saturday night,
and I'm glad when you're on Thank You?
Speaker 2 (29:42):
Can I ask you? I know that you get meals
brought to you by a service like the city or something.
Do do they give you a Christmas meal when they
swing by on Christmas? Like whatever a Christmas wheel is? Goose?
I ask that again, do you get do they bring
(30:05):
you a special Christmas meal? Because I know you kind
of get wheat meals on wheels or something like that.
Do they bring us?
Speaker 9 (30:12):
I do I get meals? As a matter of fact,
on Christmas Day, I'm having a visitor bringing me Avoka
chocolate from Little Brothers, And uh, I'm really going to
enjoy that. And let me share something with you. Uh,
there's another food service in San Francisco. It's called Meals
on Heels. Yeah, and it's a drag queen food delivery service.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Well, sign me up for that, Francisco.
Speaker 9 (30:42):
It's the only place I know of it. But uh,
and let me ask you, Bradley, you know where the
word drag comes from?
Speaker 3 (30:48):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
I feel like I might have used to known this,
but I have forgotten if I might have told you once,
all right, tell me again.
Speaker 9 (30:57):
It came from Shakespeare, Okay. Can you bet When Shakespeare
was writing his stories, all the actors were men, and
if there was a female character in the story, he
was actually writing in the margin the word drag dressed
as girl.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
That is worth its weight in gold right there?
Speaker 9 (31:18):
That you know you learn is that word. And I
want to share it with that with you.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
But they say you learned something every day. But I
hadn't learned everything anything all week. But that made effort
right there. That was good.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 9 (31:30):
But and you know about the origin of festiv Us,
right yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Jerry Seinfeld or actually George Costanzo.
Speaker 9 (31:39):
Will as a writer for Seinfeld. His name was Dan
O'Keefe and his father was back in the nineteen fifties,
was so disgusted and disarmed with commercialization of Christmas. He said,
forget Christmas. He's going to start his own holiday. And
it was fest of Us.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
All right, David, they're telling me I have to say goodbye,
So thank you so much for calling, and Merry Christmas
to you, David. Now this on WBZ.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZZY Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
It's everything Christmas on Night's side. I'm Brady Jane for
Dan tonight and it's a Christmas open house. Just let
her rip six one, seven, two, five, four, ten thirty.
I just thought of this. By the way, do you
get your pet a Christmas present? And even more well, equally, Jermaine,
(32:32):
do you dress your pat up in some sort of
Christmas outfit? I think that's much more common with smaller
dogs and larger dogs. But I will confess to.
Speaker 5 (32:44):
You that.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Our household, well we have it. We have Molly the
docs and does get dressed up for her Christmas photo.
This year she was a reindeer and we went to
a pancy hotel which allowed pets, had a beautiful, beautiful
Christmas tree, and we got a nice photo of Molly
(33:08):
the ducks and reindeer. And I will admit it's kind
of cute. I'm not a giant fan of that, but
in this case it was cute. I gave it. I
gave it the okay. I don't really get I don't
really get to give an okay or not, but I did. Anyway,
let's let's talk with Linda now in Waymouth. Thanks so much,
(33:31):
for calling us up. How you doing, Linda?
Speaker 8 (33:33):
Pretty well? I came from a church service today and
it was beautiful, full packed church service in Hingham and music,
the Christmas carols, some scripture, a little message from the
pastor and we greeted one another and we mosied along.
Speaker 2 (33:58):
You know, I have to say, of all the of
all the ways to maybe get some actual Christmas spirit,
maybe church might be the best one because because you know,
you know when it's going to be, you know everyone
there's going to be into it, and it's designed for that,
it's decorated nicely, it's all about that. And so it
(34:20):
seems like I actually jotted that down as one of
the places you get you get your your pharmaceutical strength
dose of Christmas spirit. And it worked for you, right.
Speaker 8 (34:30):
And man, what we did this week last weekend is
first time we had miracle on Main Street and it
was a series of little shelters and we had our
Capnder and he was doing his thing, a textile person
(34:52):
she was doing some her thing is as you would
in the olden days by and it was and then
we had the end, big side, no vacancy, and next
to it was the stable with the manger with a
couple and a baby, and half the time it was
(35:14):
a real baby and we had a doggy and petting goats.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Linda, thank you for checking in. I think your idea
is perfect.
Speaker 8 (35:23):
You have to get a quick question. I used to
go when I was a youngster gall of hilings basement filings,
and they had some sort of a thing on the windows,
and I was wondering if anybody else remembered that.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Oh, you need a big window. All right, let's ask.
I'm going to say go by to you, Linda, because
I have to, but maybe somebody will know that. That's
another way to get your Christmas spirit is to wander
around by Linda and wander around where they have nice
window displays and boil boy Christmas time and filings basement.
(35:59):
That's one thing that boomers have that young folks will
never have is the experience of filing his basement. The hustle,
the bustle, fighting over, fighting over underwear on don't sail
all right, my friends, let's continue. This is fun. It's
WBZ Night Side Christmas open House. Everybody is welcome, and
(36:21):
you know the number six, one, seven, two, five, four,
ten thirty on WBZ
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