By Uncle Abdul

Ahh, the holidays are in the air. There's the aroma of turkey in the oven. There's the made rush of wild-eyed people battling one another over the last Barbie doll on the rack (...hummm, just had a delightful picture of that scene pass in my mind...). There's a touch of frost and snowflakes in the ai... (WHOA fella! Wrong continent! This is San Francisco after all. ... sorry 'bout that!). And of course there's the sound of mixed voices singing, "... Ted's nuts roasting on an open fire...". This is course is a thinly disguised segue into the topic today: The Folsom Filksingers.

Filksinging is a legit word. It comes from 'filk' or "[from Sci Fi fandom, where a typo for 'folk' was adopted as a new word] A popular or folk song with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect when read, and/or to be sung late at night at Sci Fi conventions." (Well, OK! For you nit-picky English types out there, it is jargon. I can forgive you, unless you're a cute, blond submissive nit-picky English type. Then I want to watch you writhe and hear you scream as I show you the error of your ways in correcting Unc'.)

Once upon a time, in the dim distant past, there was a lady named Stacy D. Stacy was quite well known in the scene back then, and quite a bundle of fun energy. At any rate she cobbled up several 'filksongs' with a BDSM theme. Then she persuaded several of us to join her serenading the leather bars on Folsom Street a couple of evenings in mid-December--just like the carolers of old.

There were usually about 5 or 6 of us. The harmony bordered on atrocious. Had we done "The Sing-Along Messiah" we would have been responsible for throwing the entire San Francisco Symphony off key. However, the bar patrons found the entire exercise amusing and welcomed our efforts. Of course it helped that we did our filksinging after the patrons had time to down several brewskies.

Historically, Christmas Caroling in Merry 'ol England had more of a "Trick or Treat" aspect to it. Dickens later sanitized it to the benign "...sing at the shopkeeper's window for the purpose of passing on good cheer and some promise of being invited in for a touch of grog." In reality it was "...pay us with some food and drink for our damned singing or we'll pull a trick on you (like stripping your comely daughter naked and dragging her through the snow)."

At any rate, the Folsom Street Filksingers were kinkos singing to fellow kinkos, and a good time was had by all.

You may well ask what were some of the filksong lyrics? Fear not, gentle reader. They have been preserved in the Janus archives, and one or two of them were published in the "Sandmutopia Guardian" in the late '80's.

Memory dims a bit with the years, so here's some samples to just tickle your pallet.

Or, so as not to slight the Jewish members of the filksinging group, there was:

(This last one was actually composed on the spot for the occasion one mid-December.)

The singers only did their thing for about 3 years, but it is still a fond memory for some of us--and perhaps too to some leather beer drinkers of long ago Folsom Street bars.

Happy Holidays everyone...

Chao-4-Now

Unc'