Just How Wonderful of a Life Is It?

Well, I’ve had some time to decompress, get back to work, return the presents I pretended to like and take down all the cutesy kid Christmas cards that demonstrate just how quickly my friends and family are multiplying. The eggnog has gone bad, the menorah has been snuffed out eight-fold, and the Lexus December to Remember Sales Event has come and gone (hopefully, with a new Lexus for each and every one of you). Now that the dust has settled, I’d like to take a brief look back at one of the passing phenomena tied to the holiday season just to try and make sense of something that has eaten at me for some time now.

One of my favorite holiday traditions has always been the obligatory viewing of It’s a Wonderful Life. Granted I used to watch it about 47 times during December when I was a kid, given that it was just some old movie that PBS could dust off and run ad nauseum in an effort to bump up viewership during one of their 73 annual pledge drives (you know, like Miracle on 34th Street is today). However, savvy businessman extraordinaire Ted Turner quickly realized that this hot piece of advertising-revenue-generating gold was up for grabs, and he snatched in up for 30 silver pieces and held it hostage, only allowing us to view it on Christmas Eve in years past – tossing the proverbial crust of bread to the pee-on masses, if you will. However, this year, Terrible Ted was nice enough to allow us to see this gem of a film not once, but twice! Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus! I guess those DVD sales figures looked pretty good this quarter.

Now as hokey, goofy and sappy as this movie is, I admit that my holidays don't feel complete unless I watch George Bailey’s story unfold – from his young, whipper-snapper days as a soda-jerk, to his braggart taunting of his nude bride-to-be, through his days of toil keeping up his father’s wonderful old building and loan (which was closed after the market crash of ‘87 amidst terrible scandal, I’m told), right up to his life-altering encounter with Clarence, the sissy angel with no wings. By now we all know that George was in a financial quandary, and he was considering offing himself as a means to unburden his family from the shame – a noble gesture at its heart, I’m sure. But Clarence is having none of it – and to prove it he decides to show George what his life would be like had he not been born (not the same as him killing himself, but I’m splitting hairs).

As he falls under Clarence’s angelic hallucinatory spell, George is shown what the world would be like had he never been born, and he encounters many disturbing situations, none of which he can make sense of. As we are drawn along with George through this hellish alternate universe, we see the terrible fate of George’s friends, family, and beloved home town of Bedford Falls: Ernie the cabdriver is a loser living in a shack without his family; Violet is a whore who cannot ply her trade as she is hassled by the police; his wife Mary is an old maid and possibly a virgin (which would actually make me happy – I figured she’d be shacked up in New York City, the love-slave of rich playboy Sam Wainright, but whatever); his brother died at the age of nine, despite only being alive from 1911 to 1918 (even the laws of mathematics are affected by George’s non-existence – curse you, Pythagoras!); and the quaint, quiet streets of Bedford Falls are now the swinging, wild streets of Pottersville, teeming with riff raff and lined with gambling dens, sex palaces and other houses of ill-refute. Yes, the world is a darker place for everyone without George Bailey. Everyone, that is, except for…

…Nick the Bartender. We were first introduced to Nick when George left home to drown his sorrows over the missing $8,000 that foolish Uncle Billy had stupidly given to Potter. We are instantly taken by the almost catatonic state of the clientele at Martini’s – just George and Mr. Welch pounding shots and a few other people, perhaps having a nightcap prior to retiring for the evening. Dullsville, baby. An annoying, unintelligible Italian song blathers on in the background. The level of activity barely justifies having the fucking doors open at all, and Nick will be lucky to leave with two-bits worth of tips, barely enough to buy his own mother any kind of Christmas gift. Yes, he is sad, but ever the good soldier, Nick labors on, even taking orders barked at him by Mr. Martini in his pidgin English after Mr. Welch punches George in the mouth (rightfully so, I might add): “He no-a-come in-a-here no mo, you unnastan-a-me Nick?”. Nick can only meekly nod in agreement as he helps his immigrant employer’s drunken, unshaven “bess-a-fren” to his feet, secretly wondering what his own life has become.

Flash forward to the alternate George Bailey-less universe. All of a sudden, Martini’s is Nick’s. In one fell swoop, he’s gone from lackey bartender to hotshot nightclub owner – how thrilled he must have been! As George and Clarence step inside, we go along and are immediately whisked into a world the likes of which Bedford Falls had never seen. The place is absolutely packed. A large Negro (bear with me, it’s 1947) bangs out riotous jazz music on a piano. People are laughing, yelling, drinking, burning reefers and having a rowdy good time. As those crazy kids back in ’47 would say, “The joint was jumping!” And in the center of it all is Nick – the man with the plan, the head honcho, the guy no one wants to fuck with. George and Clarence sidle up to the bar (how there were two open seats at the bar in such a packed place, I’ll never understand, but again with the hair-splitting), and George orders his booze – Nick respects pouring a hard drink for a man who wants to get drunk fast – after all, the quicker and drunker they get, the more that cash register dings, the more moolah that makes its way into his pocket. It’s Capitalism at its finest. But Clarence, sissy boy that he is, quickly draws the ire of the tavern’s owner. The sweeter, and frankly more irritating, he acts, the more exasperated Nick gets – it’s like, “Hey man, I’ve got drinks to pour and cash to make, and that Negro piano player ain’t gonna pay himself, so let’s get a move on here!” Rightfully so – again, this is Nick’s livelihood – can you blame him for wanting his customer to get a move on with his order of mull wine, heavy on the cinnamon and light on the cloves?

As George and Clarence’s conversation begins to delve into Clarence’s unique “situation”, Nick is at his wit’s end. He has an image to uphold and a clientele to keep happy, so who needs two pixies – who have the audacity to address him by name even though he doesn’t know from Madame Zorf’s Ox, no less – sticking around giving the joint atmosphere? Just as he’s at his wit’s end, an elderly derelict makes his way in. This is a man who poisoned a child 30 years prior, mind you – a boozed up druggist who couldn’t hide his grief and killed an innocent as a result. So there goes George, brazenly associating with this vile rummy, calling him by name and treating him like a respected elder no less. Well, our alternate-universe Nick has seen enough – whether through the door or out the window, these two characters are gone! Slowing his liquor sales? Talking about being angels and over two-hundred years old, which is creeping out the regulars? Associating with drunken child-killer? You better believe anyone with any set of values would have these freaks tossed. At the end of this whole debacle, Nick, ever attentive to the well-being of his customers, provides them with some much-needed comic relief after this unsettling incident by pretending to give out wings as he rings up the cash register. The crowd loves it, the Negro beats his 88 keys, and the fun never stops at Nick’s.

Yet poor Nick would get a rude awakening when George Bailey suddenly decided to re-materialize and join the living again. While George was hugging his wife and children, having mounds of cash dumped on a table in order to correct a discrepancy in his company’s accounting records (one that had not yet been resolved, mind you), being reunited with his football hero medal-of-honor-winning brother, drinking Italian wine, and singing fucking Auld Lang Sine, Nick was being transformed back into the nice local boy forced to work for an Italian immigrant (undoubtedly insulting in 1940’s Upstate New York) for nickels and dimes, wondering how in God’s name he was ever going to afford that swank place in Bailey Park. Now I ask you – what the hell is so wonderful about that?

Until next time…