Torkelson: Fabricated Festivus catching on

By Jean Torkelson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published January 2, 2006 at midnight

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A naked aluminum pole, an Emmy award- winning TV show - and Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer. Anything about that suggest to you a new holiday worship tradition?

Ah, Festivus!

Fans of the Seinfeld TV show know the moment: On Dec. 18, 1997, character Frank Costanza stopped a dinner cold to declare all established holidays essentially worthless. Hoisting a stark aluminum pole, Frank put all things twinkly in their place by shouting:

"A FESTIVUS FOR THE REST OF US!"

The fictional Costanza's rebel cry has stuck - in real life. Today, "thousands" of people celebrate Festivus, according to Allen Salkin, a freelance writer who's mined the episode for a book titled Festivus. He even got Jerry Stiller, who played Costanza, to contribute the forward.

Salkin's epiphany came when friends asked him to a Festivus party.

"I said, 'From Seinfeld?' I was stunned. Then I woke up in the middle of the night and realized, 'This must be a story.'

"There's something about Festivus that's perfect right now. If you say 'Happy holidays' - boom - you're in a debate. Chrismakkah- KwanzaaRamadan - no matter how long you make the word, you're still not including everyone. But when you wish somebody 'Happy Festivus!' you don't p--- anyone off."

(Well, not quite true. Details shortly.)

First, harken back to the delicious moment when fastidious Frank proclaimed a new holiday marked by its own rituals: the airing of grievances and feats of strength.

Colorado Springs radio station KKCS caught the wave when it held a mid-December Festivus gift-giveaway at a local hospital. The current climate of political correctness (do-you-say-or-not-say "Merry Christmas"?) made the event irresistible, says radio host Craig Morrison. He mused, however, that the very-proper hospital administrators seemed "to hold back on the airing of grievances."

A 155-year-old metal fabricating firm in Milwaukee even makes a Festivus pole.

"We did it for fun," says Tony Leto, vice president of the Wagner Companies. "We're an industrial firm and we figured we weren't going to sell thousands."

In fact, they've sold about 200 (at $38 each). In the third week of December, "we got 30,000 visits to our Web site (www.festivuspoles.com),"Leto says. "I was shocked."

Plummer - what about Plummer?

"It became our thing," says Plummer, who learned of Festivus from his trainer, a Seinfeld fan, who named their brutal Friday training sessions after the holiday.

But, Plummer points out, "There's no festival involved; this isn't a happy time for us." Still, Plummer gamely made up T-shirts, "FESTIVUS WON'T GET THE BESTIVUS."

And the controversy? The Festivus episode (actually, a secondary plotline) was written by Dan O'Keefe based on a family ritual his mischievous dad cooked up in the 1960s.

What does O'Keefe think of Salkin mining the family idea? Reluctantly, Salkin says, "He doesn't like it. He feels some ownership over a certain part of it, and that's that."

Which may be why the book takes pains to trace Festivus back to ancient Roman (and pre-copyright) times. Yet Salkin is unrepentant over furthering a tradition, if not for the ages, at least for a multimedia generation.

"I'm simply a guy who discovered a virgin subculture that no one else had discovered yet," he says. "It's completely thrilling."

torkelsonj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5055

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