Thanksgiving looms like a giant mutant turkey at the outskirts of town, swinging wattles generating a cooling breeze as it casts its gimlet eye on the populace soon to become mulch under its horny yellow talons.
Thanksgiving, source holiday of the lamest, most unimaginative and trite art project ever to spring from the diseased mind of an elementary-school teacher: the traced-hand turkey. Sorry, kids, but it's true.
Any of you with the nerve to bring one of these home must have a great deal of faith in the unconditional love of your family, because if any child of mine presented me with such garbage he'd find himself spending the holiday out in the shed with a bowl of dry Shredded Wheat, the big bricky kind made from alfalfa and Brillo pads.
Thanksgiving, when a bunch of weirdos who were being quite justly persecuted for their lunatic religious beliefs back in England decided to sally forth unto a new nation in which they could be the persecutors, and boy did they take to it. Indians, blacks, women, witches, Jews, freethinkers, homosexuals, scientists, poets, agnostics and more have been being hectored and harangued by Evangelical Protestants for lo these past 375 years, and the harassment continues to this day (see: Ted Cruz).
Thanksgiving, when said persecutees landed on the North American shores and, despite many hours and weeks of furious, incessant prayer, failed to gain the intercession of the god they'd undergone such privations to freely worship in their freezing and starvation, began eating bugs, dirt, and each other as they fell. The locals, little knowing what was in store for their future at the hands of these comically inept invaders, observed their antics with mounting amusement until one day a kind-hearted chap name of Squanto took pity on the odd-looking folk who spent more time on their knees muttering unintelligibly than trying to feed themselves. He sent them an invitation on a strip of birch bark which said, and I quote, “We're having a PARTY! Come as you are (but wash up first). Bring nothing but your appetites.”
When the pilgrims arrived they were fed, feted, and honored by the Indians, but not before Squanto had extracted a promise from them to get back in their boat and go home immediately after. They agreed and stuffed themselves on grilled cheese sandwiches and fish stew, but when it started getting late they just kept hanging around. Squanto dropped a few hints and John Smith continued making excuses, telling Squanto that “the ship needed a new part,” and it would take several weeks to order one from back home, and could they please put them up until then? Ol’ softy Squanto agreed, to his eternal chagrin, and when the next ship came it brought not the necessary parts to convey the interlopers homeward but more, hungrier, muttering, oddly-dressed invaders to feed.
Thanksgiving, when passive-aggressive families with a snootful of booze seize on the opportunity to address ancient wrongs and grievances and attack their loved ones over roast turkey and boxed Chablis. I personally come from one of these families, and it's a fearsome thing to watch as the convivial vibe starts to dissipate around midway through the meal. You can almost hear the slides clicking into place as everyone chambers their complaints and prepares to fire. When the fusillade begins, no one is safe— not babies, not new boy- or girlfriends brought home to meet the family, not doddering old grandfolk— and when the ammo is spent and the smoke clears, the carnage is complete. Oddly enough, the next day they act like nothing happened. Slights and injuries are boxed up and resealed until 30 days hence when they all get together again for Christmas.
Thanksgiving, when retailers of consumer products conduct an all-out blitz on the buying public, loudly and insistently exhorting them to save, save, SAVE by purchasing our crap NOW. I don't know, I'm just going to throw this out there, but I think saving is the opposite of spending, and spending is what they insist you do to obtain their geegaws. When one saves, their money goes into the bank or under their mattress. When one spends, they give their money to the stores in exchange for something they probably don't need. Don't confuse the two. The price of something at the time you buy it is its price, regardless of the tales they spin to convince you otherwise, and its value is whatever the hucksters are able to convince you it is, and the shekels you shell out to buy it is money spent, not saved. They call it Black Friday for two reasons: one, it's the first time all year that most of them operate in the black, and b, Turn The Suckers Upside Down And Shake Them Until They're Broke Friday was deemed too revealing.
Thanksgiving, when millions of noble turkeys—a bird so intelligent, resourceful, and loyal that no less a personage than Benjamin Franklin himself counted several among his closest friends and advisers—are systematically murdered in a cruelly conceived program of forced breeding and infinitely repeated genocide.
Thanksgiving, when if you are terribly unlucky, you find yourself among a gathering of people who actually go around the room and in turn run down their lists of what they are thankful for. I have found myself, as a hard-bitten veteran of the recovery community, all too often a part of these gatherings. It is expected that one, and most do, say things like "I'm thankful for my sobriety, and the love of my family, and the fellowship, yadda yadda bleagh." I usually say something like, "Well, I'm thankful that I'm not dead, I guess… I mean most of the time…not so much right now, but in general…"
Thanksgiving, gateway celebration to the most dangerous and destructive holiday of all, Christmas. I guess maybe "bah, humbug" was pretty strong stuff back in old Dickensian London, but these days I find it insufficient to express my disdain for this holiday. How about "One more 'Merry Christmas' and I strangle you with your reindeer sweater"? Hm. Descriptive and colorful, definitely, but without the succinct punchiness of the original. I guess ol' Chuck had something there after all.
Ebeneezer Scrooge definitely had the right attitude, right up until he was badgered into eleemosynary redemption by a bit of underdone potato. Way to stick to your guns, Scroogie, you chump.
Thanksgiving, when the TV networks pull their half-dead old sitcom stars out of mothballs and cast them as the parents of twenty-somethings in the holiday episodes of their new sitcoms. Because it's perfectly reasonable to accept Carl Reiner as the father of a millenial.
Thanksgiving. Dammit all, I am thankful. I'm thankful that I live in a country where two of the leading candidates for President are dangerously and visibly crazy. It's a wonderful thing and a boon to satirists everywhere.
I'm thankful to El Nino for giving weather personalities and other dullards something to talk about.
I'm thankful for the robust constitution and impermeable immune system that has managed to keep me alive and thriving in the face of a continual and protracted toxic assault.
I'm thankful that I have an out date, distant though it is.
I'm thankful to the Anderson Valley Advertiser for the raison d'etre.
I'm thankful for having washed up on the shores of Mendocino County and encountered such a singularly interesting place (and sorry about all the stuff I stole).
I'm thankful to J.S. Bach, P.G. Wodehouse, Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul Klee, Liz Phair, Ed Hopper, John Lennon, Michael Chabon, Quentin Tarantino, Ludwig Von, and all the other people who have been able to wring from existence art of such beauty and wonder that vividly and eloquently communicates to even a misguided unfortunate like myself the joys of living and experiencing.
I'm thankful for coffee and NPR and TMZ and Taco Tuesday, but mostly and especially and particularly I'm thankful for the air I continue to breathe, despite my best efforts to curtail its intake.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
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